The Emergent Choir
by Betapike
Summary: Summary (Us Modern Humans enter and adapt to 40k) Most of us didn't think we'd become something like the Emergent Choir, especially not in 40k, and in so little time no less. But when we were forced to leave Earth and we could only escape using that mysterious portal... well... things started to get interesting.
1. Three Special Days

Summary (Us Modern Humans enter and adapt to 40k) Most of us didn't think we'd become something like the Emergent Choir, especially not in 40k, and in so little time no less. But when we were forced to leave Earth and we could only escape using that mysterious portal... well... things started to get interesting.

 **"Maybe it's only a fool who will perilously journey out to what might not be there. And maybe it's only a fool who will ask about Supertasks, about infinity. But if you want to solve problems, you don't just solve the ones that are there, you FIND more and you MAKE more and you go after the impossible ones; fostering a love and obsession with problems is how you solve problems."**

 **"Antoine de Saint-Exupery wasn't a mathematician, but his advice fits nicely here. 'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."**

 **"And as always, thanks for watching."**

 **Supertasks - Vsauce.**

* * *

 **Three Special Days.**

 **Earth: Millennium: 3 Year: 020.**

"...Citizens around the world wait with bated breath for the first report from beyond the newly dubbed 'Tartarus Gate'..."

 _*Static*_

"...Worldwide panic decreases as the possibility of establishing a new life beyond the Tartarus Gate gives billions of around the world hope for themselves and their descendants..."

 _*Static*_

"...Plans have just been revealed to construct the infrastructure necessary to quickly transport people, supplies, and machinery needed to establish a thriving colony on the new world before the Earth is destroyed..."

 _*Static*_

"...Despite the possibility that this new world's biospheres might not be compatible with human biology, numerous industries have stated that they are prepared to switch their production lines to manufacture airtight greenhouses and housing should such measures become necessary..."

 _*Static*_

"...And now for the moment that everyone has been holding their breath over, the lead scientist of the Tartarus expedition delivers the findings of his team."

The camera shows a middle-aged man addressing an anxious crowd.

"To all peoples of the world I can truthfully say that this is a very special day, for it is with the utmost joy that I can truthfully say that my team's findings show the world beyond the Tartarus Gate has a biosphere that is compatible with human physiology, to elaborate the indigenous microbes in the air, water, soil, and both on and in the plants and animals meld seamlessly with the microbes that come with us, creating no effects that wouldn't happen on Earth. According to all theories we have on what two worlds with different evolutionary history this is just as much of a miracle as the Tartarus Gate itself... and yet here it is."

Relieved cheering erupts among the crowd at the end, along with every soul watching from home, work or wherever they happen to be.

 _*Static*_

"...Breaking news: The Arial Drones exploring the rest of the world have found settlements of humans living in the middle ages..."

 _*Static*_

"...Discussions are going around talking about what should be done about these indigenous people, seeing as how we won't have any enough space for billions of people without disrupting the locals..."

 _*Static*_

"...U.N officials have stated that they are working on an appropriate course action and are asking the public at large not to worry." The reporter takes a notable pause, then resumes to finish the report. "We will keep you updated on the situation as it unfolds."

* * *

 _On this special day, the Great Devourer, the_ _Neverborn_ _, and the Eternal Metal all moved against the beachhead and stronghold of the Eye from different directions at once, not united but undisruptive to each other…_

 _(Cleansing light from the darkness.)_

 _...and they were losing._

* * *

 **Genesis: Millennium: 42 Year: *Unavailable***

In a small cozy room lit by the light of two moons, an 8-year-old girl Alena awoke with a start.

 _'The dreams are happening again.'_ She thought as she silently got out of her bed and tiptoed over to a loose floorboard, gently pulling it out and revealing a small wooden chest. Alena picked up the chest and opened it to reveal a small stack of parchment with her drawings on them, being illuminated by the two moons. The drawings, unlike those of the other children however, were of things which would cause fear and panic to anyone who knew a child drew them, and Alena wouldn't blame them.

The drawings were depictions of war across the stars, battlefields full of death, things more terrifying the most men should never have to face in battle. Of dreams that Alena has since she was 5, dreams that were becoming more frequent these past few weeks.

Alena didn't know why she was having these dreams, and when she first drew one of them she scared one of the other children and before the child told anyone Alena ripped apart the parchment and never revealed that she was having these dreams again, but she felt like they were important and needed to be written down even if they were scary. _'Maybe because they were scary?'_ she thought to herself.

Some of the drawings were recognizable even to the isolated people of her homeworld, but even if they weren't Alena understood on some level almost all of what she drew.

The savage Orks were one of the most prevalent, their crude war machines complementing their brutish nature. Their banner was of one of their robust skulls with horns on its side.

The Tyranids were in the next bundle of pictures with their chittering swarms devouring all in their path. The symbol on top of their pictures were two ravenous creatures standing back to back almost eating their tales.

Images of the Necrons in their relentless march made up the following pictures, bringing death and destruction to all things in their path. Their banner looked like a casket with a weird symbol on it.

Next were depictions of the forces of Chaos, fallen space marines and imperial soldiers with their twisted body's fighting alongside the Daemons from the nightmarish realm of the Warp. Their banner was not drawn.

She continued to look through the pictures, Tau, Eldar, other Zenos, and the innumerable symbols and forces of the Imperium of Man followed suit.

After Alena finished looking at the mass of papers she came to the last stack of drawings, which were of the most recent things she had been dreaming about.

On top of the stack was a symbol of an eye, but in place of its pupil was an almost-complete circle with a straight line going into its missing top. It made her think of a mortar and pestle.

Alean was about to look through the drawings underneath it, but then she panicked before she knew what startled her.

 ***Thunk***

On reflex, she put the drawings back into the wooden chest. put the chest back in its hiding place and put the loose floorboard back where it was and turned around… and found no one was there, just her candle on her bedpost which had fallen off… for some reason.

Alena quickly and quietly got back into bed, once she was there she made a hand gesture that she was taught was meant to ward off unwelcome specters and ghosts. Once she calmed down enough to gather her thoughts, which were now returning to her drawings and the panic that came over her when she thought her father had entered.

The pictures were going to get her in trouble, she knew it. But she still knew in her heart they should be kept safe rather than destroyed, no matter if no one less would accept them. She spent the rest of her time awake thinking about what she should do before she finally fell asleep.

When she woke up the next morning she had an idea, the pictures couldn't stay here so they had to be moved somewhere safe. The woods seemed like a good place for her. Her father and the other men from the village would occasionally go to get lumber from the forest. But no one would look for a chest that could be buried anywhere within it.

 _'Indeed.'_ Alena reflected. _'Every time father goes into the woods he comes home truly exhausted.'_

He would still try to tell her stories like he did every night, about the God-Emperor, the Imperium of man, the Covenant, the King, the Age of Darkness and much more. But as much as she loved them, he would fall asleep too quickly after the days of the Timber Harvest, and she would tuck him in just as he did for her every other night. She smiled at the memories for a while, then return to the plan to bury the pictures.

Today was the day when the party was going to get the lumber from the forest, giving her the chance to get the pictures out of the house without worrying about her father. So when her father said goodbye to her and went with the other men, she took the picnic basket she and her father sometimes used, and placed the wooden chest containing the pictures at the bottom of the basket and covered them with a blanket. On top of the blanket she placed two loaves of bread, a small loaf she sliced for herself and a bigger loaf for her father. Then she took a small jar of jam and put it in the basket.

She did this just in case she ran into the party while looking for a place to keep the pictures. If that happened she could claim to have come to bring her father lunch, with the wooden chest with the pictures in under the blanket no one would know what she was doing.

It would also help her if she was caught sneaking back into the village after hiding the pictures as she could claim the same thing and there wouldn't be anything but the bread and jam in the basket to suggest otherwise.

She then walked over to her wardrobe for her gardening cloak because the little shovel in its pocket would be needed for digging and it would also serve as a traveling cloak, which was good because Alena didn't know how far she would have to travel to bury the chest. She closed the wardrobe and began to leave, just before she left her room she noticed her reflection in the mirror.

In the mirror, she saw a girl with green eyes and sandy blonde hair with her favorite ribbon in it. She was wearing a yellowish-white blouse tied up with a leather belt around her waist. Her skirt was a nice purple color, but it hasn't been washed since yesterday. Like the skirt, the cloak was notably dirty but that was because it was mostly used for gardening so it was only beaten to get the dirt out after it was used, and properly washed once a week.

Satisfied she put the hood on her cloak over her head and she moved to leave her home, but just before she opened the door a new thought came to her mind. _'Do I need to do this? Or should I burn the pictures in the fireplace? Or even simply keep the pictures where they were?'_ After a few minutes of thinking, she made up her mind. "No." She decided. She knew the pictures were important even if she couldn't understand why, so they couldn't be burned. And she remembered how scared she was when the candle fell last night and didn't feel comfortable leaving the pictures where they were.

With that final decision, she opened the door and stealthily moved about the village. It was early in the morning and most went back to bed after the men had left. She wandered out, sneaked past the guards at the village and made her way into the forest. She passed the farm of young trees behind the village which was planted by the fathers of her grandfathers. It was well on its way to becoming a good source of wood for the village but not for many years to come. So, until this particular forest was ready to be cut down, the villagers would gather once or twice a month to go into the forest and gather lumber.

She continued on her way into the forest, noticing the easily recognizable trail you would expect a village's worth of men, horses, oxen, and wagons to leave. Alena wondered if her story about wanting to bring her father a picnic basket would hold up to scrutiny, seeing how easy it would be to simply follow the trail heading west. She decided she would claim she took a detour and got lost, with that she headed southwest into the forest.

After a long journey and finally getting to the point where she found a good place to bury the chest, she unloaded the picnic basket, took the chest out and reached for the gardening shovel in her cloak. She looked around and paid extreme attention to the land around her and proceeded to bury the chest. After she was done she got up and started to head back to the village. But then she heard a strange noise like a whisper in a silent wind.

She looked to her right and she saw some trees that didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary, but she could have sworn the noises came from them. Looking at the trees she called out in both fear and curiosity. "Hello? Is someone there?" When nothing answered her, She decided that she wasn't feeling that curious and continued on her way home. But after three steps she heard something right behind her.

"Wots dis? A humie Gretchin! Yum yum!"

"Da Boss wud luv to eat it up!"

"I wanna get its leg!"

"Yu's gonna eat Squigs, not humie Gretchin! Da humie Gretchin is for da Boss."

"Which Boss? Da Big Boss or da us Boss?"

"Da Big Boss, yu idiot! Da Warboss luv eating humies!"

Slowly she turned around. To her left, she saw four green creatures. They were wicked-looking with big heads. Their skins were green and though they were only slightly bigger than her they looked menacing. Made worse since each of them held a tiny metal knife with a crude handle.

Alena trembled as she recognized the Gretchins that the village elders spoke of in their stories, the smaller but just as vicious cousins of the Orks. _'Father said the Kingdom fought the Orks off 10 years ago and they wouldn't return for at least 5 more years, why have they returned so soon?!'_

'While the four Gretchins argued among themselves as to who should deliver this tasty morsel to the Warboss, Alena used their moment of distraction and slowly walked away, carefully trying to avoid stepping on anything that would make a noise.

She almost successfully walked away in silence, and then she heard behind her…

"Oi, did we orda dis dinna ta go?"

"Yes yu idiot, it's gonna go to the Big Boss, why yus asking stupid questions?"

"Kus dere it goes! Not to da Big Boss!"

Alena abandoned all attempts at stealth and ran. The Gretchins let out a howl of Orkish frustration and ran after her. It was only a few seconds later when she slipped on a tree root and fell. She cried out in pain as her ankle was sprained, and then her scream became that of terror as the four Gretchins were almost upon her.

"Somebody help!" She cried out in desperation. while a part of her accepted that no help was coming. Normally she would be right.

But this was a special day.

 ***Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang***

"Graagh!" "Graagh!" "Graagh!"

The sounds of thunder howled despite the clear and calm sky while the Gretchins shouted in pain, with one of them having fallen. The one that fell did so with a bloody red spot right where its heart would be, the last thing the monster would ever do was clench it as it dropped and died.

But the other three turned around and Alena was treated to a gruesome sight; the Gretchin's backs were covered in punctured wounds created by some form of metal shards which she could still see sticking out of the pulsating injuries like warts, she forced herself to look away from the hideous display and take the opportunity to limp behind the tree as the Gretchins tried to find the source of the attacks.

"Look ova dere!" Snarled the one farthest from Alena while showing no sign of feeling pain from its injuries, pointing towards where she heard the whispers. "Dere's four humies with shootas tryin ta hide behind da trees!"

"Whot? Dese humies don't use shootas!" Shouted the one in the middle of the group, which was now looking at the direction the farthest one was pointing. "Da ones with da shootas are-"

 ***Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang***

"Graagh!"

The thundering sounds came back and with it, more wounds were being inflicted on the Gretchins, most of which were now appearing on their heads. The one in the back of the group had apparently decided that it had overstayed its welcome and ran for the nearest thicket, never to be seen again, the other two Gretchin fell over and Alena could see that one of them had its left eye gouged in, it looked like one of those metal shards had been buried into the eye socket and destroyed the monsters brain.

The last one either didn't notice or care that the other two had either ran away or died because it let out another Orkish howl and began to charge only to be struck by the thundering weapons before it could take two steps toward the trees where the attack was coming from.

After a minute of silence, four figures emerged from the place where the gunfire came from. The figures were revealed to be men dressed in what looked like cloth which was colored various shades of green, white, brown and black in a pattern that served as camouflage against the surrounding forest. They each held a gun in their hands which they held firmly, betraying years of experience with such weapons despite the looks of shock and fear on their faces while looking at the fallen Gretchins.

Alena slowly rising from her hiding place wondering who these people were and where they had come from... until she saw that the last Gretchin was still breathing!

* * *

 _ **Author's note:**_

 _ **Well, here it is, my newest version of this story. Hope all readers old and new enjoy it.**_

 _ **So you might have noticed a few things looking extremely familiar if you saw a certain**_ _ **Swarm of War**_ _ **by**_ _ **VexMaster.**_ _ **To which I say… Ya, you're right.**_

 _ **I can't remember exactly how I came across the story, but I sure do remember the disappointment it gave me.**_

 _ **Don't get me wrong, it's still a worthwhile read with the Zerg Swarm adapting to the 40k universe and I do recommend to anyone reading this story, it's probably going to take me a long time to get anything done being the lazy perfectionist I am.**_

 _ **But I was disappointed in what I saw as wasted potential.**_

 _ **What do I mean by that? Well, when Alean was saved by the original Tobias (and yes, Tobias is going to reappear here although he's going to be a little different) on the orders of James because he felt all the emotions he felt when his little sister Helen was hit by a car and he always felt bad whenever Helen limped.**_

 _ **That car accident was engraved so deeply in his mind and soul that it affected him even after all the changes he underwent, he still felt for this little girl, he wanted to save her, he felt something beyond the basic needs of the Swarm.**_

 _ **This gave me an idea that I was going to read one of those 'what does it mean to be human' stories I just can't get enough of, and what ethics should someone in James's position should act on? Stuff like that.**_

 _ **I know that's not exactly a thing that's supposed to happen in 40K... But neither is the Zerg appearing out of a trans-dimensional doohickey.**_

 _ **And somebody from our world in control of an ever-evolving swarm deciding to undo the Grim Darkness of the far future… *sighing heavily* But when the first village the Zerg came to in force was… well, I didn't get what I was hoping for.**_

 _ **But you know what they say: if you want something done right, do it yourself.**_

 _ **So what you can expect from the story is a lot of the names and events from Swarm of War to reappear here, although there will be several notable cases of personality change to the characters, a more fleshed-out backstory on the planet and much more.**_

 _ **Also, we will be the ones appearing on Genesis instead of the Zerg.**_

 _ **Sincerely Betapike.**_


	2. When Worlds Collide

**When Worlds Collide.**

 **"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The Pessimist fears it is true"- J. Robert Oppenheimer.**

* * *

 **Earlier that day.**

A sprawling green plain stretched all the way from the edge of the lush green forest to the bottom of a mountain range that separated a peninsula from the mainland, uninhibited by either Orks or humans during the long millennia since they both first arrived. In the sky was something that didn't seem to belong in this world, a machine which seemed to fly with two horizontally placed windmills spinning with such power they lifted the machine. The machine landed at the edge of the forest with a soft **'Thump'** and the soldiers inside of its hull unloaded themselves. They scanned the area with practiced precision then relaxed slightly when they knew the area was clear. Some of the members of the squad turn their backs to the forest to look at the plain with the mountains in the distance.

"Man what an amazing sight." said private Jenkins the newest member of the squad. He turned to his squadmates and asked. "You think I'll be allowed to build a house here when all of this is done and we've settled in?" He asked enthusiastically.

"Baby steps Jenkins." Replied fellow private Forsell. "Let's try completing today's mission without any major screw-ups."

"How exactly is there supposed to be any major screw-ups?" Ask Jenkins. "All we're doing is installing some cameras."

Before Forsell could tell Jenkins he probably just jinxed it, the leader of this operation spoke up.

"Alright people listen up," said Sergeant Fenix an as by the book soldier as they come. "Just in case some of you didn't listen during the briefing, I'm going over the mission parameters one more time."

"Yesterday the drones found a middle ages village on the other side of this forest," he explained as he gestured behind him. "And more settlements are being discovered every hour. As you all know we need to colonize this planet if our civilization is going to survive, but it'll be better if we avoid repeating the more unsavory aspects of our past, we also don't know anything about these people and only an idiot makes any big decisions before he knows as much about the situation as possible."

"Fortunately for whatever reason, the natives speak English, so all we have to do is listen to learn." With that Fenix pulled out a small camera from out of his backpack to show everyone.

"So we have been sent here to gather intelligence on the situation and we're going to do that by splitting up into fire teams of 4 troops sneaking in and around the forest installing these little beauties to learn more about these people," he explained as he put the camera back.

"Once each team has finished placing their cameras in the designated places will rendezvous here to return home, we are not going to interact So does anyone have any questions?"

Someone in the group raised their hand and after being given me to speak he asked his question. "Sir, I noticed that we have soldiers by the names of Johnson, Jenkins, Forsell, and Mendoza in one of the fire teams and we also have a sergeant by the name of Marcus Michael Fenix."

"Your point Soldier?"

"I'm just wondering when are the Master Chief and Commander Shepard going to arrive?" The soldier asked with a smirk.

Snickering was heard throughout the squad at the question and in retaliation, Mendoza sent a gesture at the soldier who made the remark.

Sergeant Fenix shook his head and continued. "Alright people we have a job to do and we're not getting paid by the hour, move out." With that order, the Squad split into fireteams of 4 designated Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie and begin their treks into the forest. "Oh, and I almost forgot... our helmet cams are broadcasting everything we're seeing live across the whole Earth so try to keep the swearing mild and to a minimum, it would kind of defeat the purpose of keeping everyone back home informed if every other word per sentence was just a loud and annoying beeping noise, you all hear me?"

"Yes sir, we'll keep the swearing to Halo levels." said the smirking soldier from earlier.

* * *

 **Several hours later.**

After placing their hidden cameras around the forest Johnson, Jenkins, Forsell, and Mendoza (designated Bravo Team) began to head back to the rendezvous, idly chatting as they went.

"You think maybe somebody put us all together as a joke?" Mendoza bitterly asked. "I mean seriously, what are the odds of a group of people with the names of a video game characters naturally forming?"

"Boy, I don't know or care what the odds are and neither should you," declared Johnson. "Personally I kinda like the comparison, those men got to fight against some of the most badass enemies in their universe, and it's kind of fun to pretend to be someone else every once in a while."

Before and those I could continue the conversation the Bravo team heard a noise and took cover behind the trees. There was still no telling what sort of dangers this planet hosted, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

It was then a little girl appeared. She was wearing a yellowish-white blouse tied up with a belt around her skirt which was a nice purple color, but it didn't look like it had been washed recently. She was carrying a picnic basket and heading back to the village with a satisfied smile on her face.

"Switch to radio and keep your voices down," Johnson whispered.

All three of his men complied.

"It looks like one of the children from the village... and it looks like she's heading home," Jenkins whispered.

"Let her pass, our orders are to observe only," Johnson ordered.

His men acknowledged his order and counted their observations, "Any idea why she's so far out here?" Forsell asked. "I don't think she's old enough to be sent out this far."

"Maybe she was she just got lost and now is trying to get back home," Jenkins suggested.

"It doesn't look like she's lost," Mendoza observed. "I mean look at her, you think she would be more scared if she were lost, and it's like you said she's heading home which means she clearly knows where she's going."

"Mendoza, are you suggesting something?" asked Johnson.

Before anyone could ask Mendoza what he was getting at the girl looked over to the trees where they were hiding, and she called out "Hello? Is someone there?"

The four soldiers were shocked into silence, they weren't that far away from the girl but being as quiet as they were, she shouldn't have heard them. After a moment of the soldiers hardly even daring to breathe the girl seemed to have lost interest in the trees they were hiding behind and continued on her way. The four soldiers looked at each other and came to an unspoken agreement, wait for the girl to leave then start talking again.

The girl was just about to leave and Johnson was just about for orders when four tiny creatures wielding crude knives appeared from the same place the girl first came from. They looked like goblins with their green skin, small demeanor, long beak-like noses, and vicious red eyes looking straight at the girl.

' _What the hell?'_ Johnson thought to himself. As the four creatures started to speak to each other in a cockney accent.

"Wots dis? A humie Gretchin? Yum yum!"

"Da Boss wud luv to eat it up!"

"I wanna get its lag!"

"Yu's going to eat Squigs, not humie Gretchin! Da humie Gretchin is for the Boss."

"Which boss? Da Big boss or the us boss?"

"Da Big Boss, yu idiot! Da Warboss luv eating humies!"

While the four creatures argued among themselves as to who should deliver this tasty morsel to their 'Warboss', the girl used their moment of distraction to slowly walk away, she almost successfully escaped in silence, but then one of the creatures saw her.

"Oi, did we orda dis dinna ta go?"

"Yes yu idiot, it's gonna go to the Big Boss, why yu's asking stupid questions?"

"Kus dere it goes! Not to da Big Boss!"

The girl broke into a run, and the Creatures let out a howl and ran after her. "Bravo squad prepare to fire on the Goblins, be careful not to hit the girl!" Johnson ordered, and his men moved with practiced efficiency.

As they prepared it looked like for a moment the girl was going getaway, but she slipped on a tree root and fell. She cried out in pain as her ankle was sprained, and then her scream became that of terror as the four Creatures were almost upon her.

"Somebody help!" She cried out in desperation.

It was then Bravo team in a silent agreement took the opportunity to open fire.

 ***Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang***

"Graagh!" "Graagh!" "Graagh!"

The bullets clearly connected to the goblin-like creatures, but only one of them fell to the ground clutching its heart as it did, and much to the shock of bravo team who had seen full-grown men taken down by a single burst from the weapons they were currently using, the other three child-size monsters turned their wounded backs to the girl and faced the trees bravo team was taking cover behind, while the soldiers could see bunning red anger in their eyes and showing hardly any sign that they were hurt.

"Look ova dere!" Said the one closest to the squad, pointing at them as it spoke. "Dere's four humies with shootas tryin ta hide behind da trees!"

"Whot? Dese humies don't use shootas!" Said the one in the middle of the group, which was now looking at the direction the closest one was pointing. "Da ones with da shootas are-"

 ***Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang***

"Graagh!"

After getting over their shock of the resilience of the creatures Bravo team opened fire on the creatures again, this time focusing on their heads. The one that was denying the others claim was shot in its left eye and immediately fell over like a bag of potatoes, while another decided to screw it and dashed for the nearest thicket to become completely forgotten about by both the soldiers and it buddies. The last one either didn't notice the other two dying and running away or it didn't care, because it let out a howl and began to charge only to be shot down before it could take two steps toward the trees were Bravo team was shooting from.

After ten seconds of silence, Johnson ordered his team forward to investigate the dead creatures, they were almost on top of the bodies when the girl started to cautiously emerge from behind the tree.

Her eyes mediately widen and she held up one hand in a stop gesture at the soldiers and the other hand was used to put a pair of fingers to her lips, the message was clear: _'stop and be quiet_ , _'_ and the team complied and waited. A moment later she took her hands to her mouth and moved them back and forth regularly, after a moment of doing that she took one of her hands and pointed to the last goblin look-alike that fell while still using the other to make the back and forth motion in front of her mouth. ' _That one is still breathing.'_

Bravo team nodded in understanding and the closest members took a few steps back from the creature playing possum and slowly raised all four of their weapons at it, and-

"Graagh!"

 ***Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang***

Whether it was from especially keen senses or a burst of stupid luck the creature sprang out of the way of the first volley, dashed towards the closest soldier forcing the troops to stop shooting, and proceed to stab Mendoza in the knee. However, the knife couldn't penetrate the kevlar knee cap and Mendoza kicked the creature with enough force to send it flying meters away, but by reflex, the monster held on and clawed away the uniform above his ankle and bit it with a sickeningly fast snap followed by panicked yelling.

"Ahhhhh! Get it off! Get it off!"

"Hold still! Hold still!" Jenkins shouted as he and Forsell worked together to pull off the monster's jaw while Johnson in a rush of quick thinking looked around and found a rock the size of his head and brought it over to the horrific scene. By the time he returned with the rock Jenkins and Forsell succeeded in prying off the beast's mouth off Mendoza's lag and they were holding it in the air as it snarled and growled from its blood-soaked mouth while clawing at its holders.

"Pin it to the ground, now!" He ordered, and they did so immediately and Johnson brought the head-sized rock down on its face, between his bulked-up muscles and the planet's gravity the rock fell with more than enough force to crush the monster's skull and splatter its brains across the forest floor.

Baring the sounds of heavy breathing silents ruled for a total of 6 seconds before Mendoza let loose a sigh of relief and got up on his feet. "God damn it, what were those goblin things?"

"Well, that's the question of the hour isn't it?" Johnson asked rhetorically as he turned around to face Mendoza. "So how are you feeling-oh hell what are you doing on your feet?!

"I'm fine," Mendoza said dismissively, "Honesty it feels like I overreacted when I was bitten by... whatever that thing was."

"It is called a Gretchin, and you need to treat that wound before it's too late." said a worrying voice of a little girl originating from behind the tree. Before Johnson could make any other retorts at Mendoza's laxity at being bitten by some alien creature.

Johnson turned around to see the little girl they had gone against their original orders to save had come out from her hiding place with an expression that looked as considered as her voice did from a moment ago did, he forced himself to relax before asking his questions.

"Hello, are you hurt and what's so dangerous about… Gretchin bites?"

The look of worry remained when she spoke again. "I'll be fine, your fellow soldier is the one who needs help, Gretchin bites are very dangerous if untreated," she told him with a hint of urgency as she fully came out from behind the tree.

Alright, straight to business then. "What exactly makes a Gretchin bite dangerous? Also, my name is Johnson, this is Jenkins, Forsell, and the one who got bitten is Mendoza."

She nodded in understanding and said. "My name is Alena, and what makes Gretchin bites very dangerous is that Gretchin, like all other Orkoid creatures like Squigs, Snotlings, and Orks, are constantly breathing out fungal spores which usually they just land on the ground and start to grow into new patches of fungus which eventually spawns and feeds the entire Orkoid Ecosystem, but when a Gretchin or any of the other animal-like Orkoid bites a creatures that aren't Orkoids themselves, those spores they breath out enter the body, making the host numb to the pain and make then feel complacent in general as the spores begin to grow inside the body. If the bite is not treated by someone who knows exactly what they're doing and has exactly the right instruments available to them, then the victim is doomed to either losing a limb by amputation or becoming a spore infested corpse in a few days which will provide plenty of nutrients for a fast-growing fungus patch."

After a moment of Bravo team only giving her blank and or frightened stares, Alena started again. "How is it you don't know any of this? Are you from off-world or something?"

"...Yes." Johnson replied after he processed the fact this little girl had used the term 'Off-world.'

Alena returned the look of blank confusion for a moment before she recovered and continued. "Huh, at any rate, Mendoza needs to be treated before... sunset at the absolute longest by an experienced healer, fortunately, there is one in my village which we can get to in time of we hurry, if you escort me back home my father will vouch for you as a Covenant Storyteller, although he would like to hear your story afterward."

Johnson's eyes widen at her answer and he felt the two of the three other men shift uncomfortably. "The... Covenant?"

Alena scratched her head sheepishly, "Right, I guess you wouldn't have heard of the Covenant if you had only recently arrived," She regained her composure "But all of that can be explained later, we need to leave right now if we're going to save your friend."

Johnson looked back to his men to see Jenkins and Forsell were looking unsure of the situation while Mendoza looked...

"Mendoza! how are you feeling?!"

After a few exceptionally long seconds he responded in what Johnson perceived as a very disturbingly impassive tone. "I feel... alright, even though the stuff about becoming a fungus infested corpse should be... terrifying, I feel... fine and-"

"Alright stop right there!" After a moment of contemplating the situation, Johnson returned his attention to Alean. "Ok... Well, If you're sure we'll be welcome there..."

Alean looked at the whole of Bravo team with sincerity and replied. "You'll be fine," she reassured them. "Are you ready to go?"

Johnson was just about to say yes when he remembered he was supposed to get permission to deviate from the original plan. "I just need a moment," Johnson said just before he contacted his superiors, looking slightly up while he spoke. "Well, you all definitely heard the situation, permission to accept Alean's offer?"

After a moment the response came through. "It doesn't look like you have much choice... Permission granted, we'll send a squad to secure the bodies for study."

"Understood, over and out," Just before Johnson made the announcement he noticed Jenkins and Forsell having some exceptionally grim looks on their faces as they talked to each other while looking at the bodies of the so-called Gretchins, and his intuition told him it wasn't the attack itself that they were worried about, but he decided that was something that would have to wait.

"Good news everyone, they said yes," He said." Forsell support Mendoza for the trip, Jenkins take all the gear you can carry from them," He turned to Alean and said. "Lead the way."

Alean made a military salute and turned to lead them to the village only for a gasp of pain escaped her mouth face when she took the first step with her leg that had the sprained ankle.

"You need help?" he asked only for her to immediately pick up a stick, test it with her weight, and used it as a third leg before replying, "I'm fine," and when the rest of the team was ready the journey began in earnest.

* * *

After several hours, the group of five reached the edge of the forest and the village came into view. The sun was beginning to set and all five could see a crowd of dozens of people carrying recently lit lanterns. In front of the crowd was a man with his back to the forest, addressing the crowd with his voice on the edge of extreme worry.

"... So she cannot have gone far." He said after what sounded like a speech describing the situation.

"Don't worry Elric we will find her." Said a man in the front of the crowd.

Alena stopped and gestured at Bravo Squad to stay behind and let her revealed herself first.

"Wait, what's that?" Someone in the crowd asked.

The search team turned to see Alena running out of the forest alive and unharmed (and not carrying the walking stick she used for most of the journey) before anyone could react Alena rush over to the man called Eric and called out, "Father!"

He kneeled down to catch her and they hugged tightly with Elric whispering in a relieved tone. "Where have you been? When I found out that you were missing, I was so terrified."

Alena smiled wide and kissed her father on the cheek, there were some things that couldn't be rushed but after that Alena quickly told her story.

"I was going to surprise you with a picnic father," she held up the aforementioned picnic basket to emphasize then continued her story, "but I got lost so I began to head home. Then I was ambushed by a few Gretchins and rescued and escorted home by four soldiers." At first, everyone was relieved to see her safe, but then they began to worry about the Gretchins and soldiers she mentioned, but before anyone could ask her any questions she lost her smile and continued to the important part.

"However one of my saviors was bitten by a Gretchin that was faking death," she looked behind her to see Bravo team walking a fair bit slower in order to stay with and support a limping Mendoza who now had a nearly completely apathetic look of his face due to what must have been hours of the untreated effects of a Gretchin bite.

After a moment of hesitation, Johnson stepped in front of both teams and began to introduce himself and his men. "I am Sergeant-"

"-How long has it been since the bite?" Alean's uncle Hargen asked with utmost urgency after he stepped forward and cut off Johnson's introduction.

Quickly recovering from the interruption Johnson replied. "About..." Stopped when he remembered that these people probably didn't keep time with the same units the people of Earth did, "Around noontime."

Hargen moved to pull up the uniform covering the bite and saw that there were small patches of green growing inside the wound. "Dark forsook..." he whispered under his breath, "Bring him to my house, we need to act swiftly to save him at this point."

"Sure, sure, let's do that," Mendoza mumbled as he was practically dragged by Jenkins and Forsell to where Hargen led them, leaving Johnson to speak with Elric.

Once Johnson got a good look at Elric he found himself feeling... vulnerable. It wasn't that Elric was an overly imposing figure, in fact, he appeared to be only slightly more sturdy built than the other villagers, what was really making Johnson uncomfortable were his eyes.

The thoughts that came to Johnson's mind when looking at Elric's eyes were that they were powerful, wise, and sad, they gave off the impression that he had seen far too much during his lifetime, but he had taken that pain and horror and transformed himself into a leader capable of bearing the burden of multiple worlds, and in the first second he saw you he managed to make an educated guess the worst thing you would be willing to do to his world, what your chances are of accomplishing that will, how he could best stop you, and how to make you regret the moment you ever thought to attack his people. There was no doubt in Johnson's mind that Elric was the local leader here, heck, if he only saw Elric face in a picture and was told to guess what position this man held in medieval society, he would have guessed he was the king. It took all of his training not to shudder or ramble.

"Sorry for Hargen's lack of introduction, but Orkoid spores do not wait for pleasantries." He paused for a moment while looking at his hand with a puzzled expression, then he held it out to Johnson "My name is Elric, and I'm thankful you for saving my daughter from the Gretchins."

He gripped the offered hand and shook it. "Think nothing of it," Johnson said dismissively while reflecting on how convenient it was they apparently used handshakes just like people back on Earth did. "My name is Johnson, and I'm a soldier of the United States Marine Corps."

Elric stood silent for a good solid 5 seconds before he replied. "I'm afraid we are not familiar with anything called the United States Marine Corps."

Johnson smiled and chuckled. "I would have been well above surprised if you were because we're new around here."

"...Well then, If I may be so bold, prepares you would like to join us for our banquet where we can answer each other's questions? I certainly have some and my intuition says you do as well."

After remembering that banquet was another way of saying dinner Johnson hesitated for a moment before replying. "I'd prefer if we'd at least have the first conversation be private."

Elric wore a bemused expression when he answered. "The most important part of any secret is the knowledge that the secret exists. Seeing as how you have already betrayed the fact that there is at least one secret about you in front of everyone else here..." he said as he gestured to the group that had assembled to find Alean along with Alean herself, "Well, I do find any effort to keep any secrets to be in vain."

"Of course, but I'd feel more comfortable if you, someone who seems to be the trusted authority figure around here, heard the story first then told everyone else how you saw fit. the story is also a pretty long one, so do you have someplace we can talk for a while?"

"...Yes, and if it's so important to you then we can speak in private." Elric said as he beckoned Johnson to follow him to his house. Then he added, "You're still welcome to dine with us if you or your men wish to."

"That sounds good, thank you for your hospitality."

 **Elsewhere.**

After they dropped off Mendoza outside the healer's house to be treated, Jenkins and Forsell went for a walk for a bit of privacy after Forsell could tell that Jenkins was extremely troubled for some reason, "I know back when we first started the journey here we saw a lot of weird things in the space of about 10 minutes so I get it if you didn't think it was worth noting, but did you see how Alean made a salute near the end?"

"I did," Forsell whispered back. "You have any theories besides it being another weird coincidence like how they're speaking English?"

"Yeeessss, considering the nature of the universe we're in, I think it's a safe bet to-

"-What do you mean 'the universe we're in?'"

"You don't know about 40k? Ummm, well... based on what we've seen so far it looks like the Tartarus Gate leads to a universe that is identical- or extremely similar to- a fictional universe called Warhammer 40k. Although I'm wondering if there really is such a thing as fiction with the multiverse making everything equally real somewhere sometime, anyway... to make a long and complicated story short and simple..." Jenkins when into the lore behind psykers and their place, powers, and dangers, within the 41st millennium. After hearing the story Forsell had a look of repulsion and disbelief on his face.

Jenkins nodded in understanding. "Horrifying I know, but there's a reason why the tag is and I quote. "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war."

"Looks like I'm going to read up on this 40k as soon as I get the spare time, then again I will probably just have to read up on the news with any and all websites with any lore about this '40k' being completely bogged down with searches."

"I wouldn't worry about that, there are plenty of youtube videos that can tell you plenty of stuff about 40k. Also, why do you think any website would be completely bogged down with-... oh God no!" Jenkins whispered remembering the fact their helmet cameras were broadcasting the operation to the whole world.

Jenkins stood in complete silents despairing over the fact that back on Earth there would be a resurgence of mass hysteria, looting, random crimes, and the emergence of wannabe Rambos causing a great deal of devastation that would likely kill more people at first then the actual dangers of the 41st millennium, just like the Great Panic in World War Z, and it would probably come to be known as the Second Panic.

* * *

 **Author's note: First of all to anyone who served in the military and knows for a fact that in a situation where the army needed to gain information on a new civilization on an alien world the military would not send ground soldiers to install hidden cameras around the nearest village I'm just going to say… I'm just a fanfiction writer/reader and an RTS player, not a real-life military expert.**

 **You know I recently reread my first draft of this story and I got to say, I'm amazed people decided to keep reading it even when I made so many mistakes even if it was fanfiction, to which I say thanks all who read the original.**

 **Again thanks to my unofficial beta reader ChronoEntente who gave the name Marcus Michael Fenix to my undecided Sargent.**

 **Edit: While I never found anything about Orkoid bites causing infestation like what is described in this chapter, I decided to add it to; make the enemy more terrifying, throw the Earth humans (And by extension you readers.) into doubt as to how much they can depend on their meta-knowledge, and add another reason for Bravo team to go to the village. It also seems like a pretty logical extension on their capabilities to me, and if everyone reads it and goes 'THIS IS NOT FUCKING CANON!' well, I can just say it's a unique phenomenon to the Orkoids of Genesis.**


	3. Exchanging Stories

**One thing before we proceed.**

 **Some of the mysteries I put here are intended to be solvable before the reveals, but I want to have as many people find them out on their own as possible.**

 **So if you what to get the bragging rights too say you figured out parts of my story, then private message me to send your idea and at the reveal, I'll add your name to the list of people who figured it out beforehand.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **"Stories are attempts to share our values and beliefs. Storytelling is worthwhile when it tells what we stand for."**

 **Simon Sinek.**

 **Exchanging stories.**

* * *

 **One hour later.**

It was now dusk outside Elric's warmly lit house, inside both Elric and Johnson were sitting in front of each other at a table in the middle of the living room ready to learn the story of the other.

Before the storytelling began, Johnson had removed his helmet. The reasoning behind this was the local customs which forbade one to wear any form of head obstructing outfit while stories were being told as a show of honesty between the two parties- even if Elric didn't expect Johnson to be completely truthful. Johnson accepted with the condition that his helmet would be kept in the same room and right next to him as the stories were told, saying his leaders would call for his head if he lost his helmets when out of combat, while unbeknownst to Elric the camera installed on the helmet recorded and broadcast everything it saw and heard back home.

It was decided then that Johnson would tell his story first, he started by explaining how centuries ago his ancestors lived a lot like how Elric's people were living now. Then some people looked at the world around them and said to themselves, _'There has to be a better way for all of this to be done.'_ And so they began the journey to develop ideas on how the world could be better and began to test their ideas through experimentation and observation, building on the ideas that passed the tests, and rejecting the ones that failed. The successful ideas served as the foundations of newer ideas to be built on, and as time went by they began to give us more knowledge and power over the world around us than those who began the journey could have ever imagined. The ability to create machines capable of flight, instant communication across and even on different continents, the creation of weapons more devastating than ever before, and the ability to land and walk on the surface of our moon with what was called the Apollo program.

Elric made a slight throat-clearing sound which gave Johnson pause, and then he decided to ask him what was up. "Is something wrong?"

"Not at all," Elric said quickly. "I was simply wondering at what it was like to leave the surface of the world you were born on and walk upon the surface of the moon… What were the names of the men who first went there in question if that's no secret?"

"Their names were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins," Johnson said with a hit of pride in his voice.

Elric closed his eyes and put on a slight smile at the declaration of those names. Then he apologized for the interruption and asked Johnson to continue.

"Decades went by and we continued to look to the stars in awe and wonder at what other worlds out there that may exist beyond our own. Until the day came when one of those stars evenly died and ended up heading straight for us, then we looked just looked up and felt utterly terrified."

"Oh?" Elric chimed in.

"So essentially what happened was that Above the sky of our world, there are, or were, machines that we call "satellites", which greatly helped us in communicating with each other and to coordinate our civilizations—until a few weeks ago, when in the span of a few hours a meteor shower had destroyed a number of satellites with their ruins now scattered debris across low Earth orbit, debris which struck other satellites turning them into more debris which in turn destroyed more satellites, resulting in a scenario known as Kessler syndrome. More on that later."

"What was particularly strange about this turn of events was the meteor shower was entirely accounted for, but it was predicted that the meteor shower should have missed us without anything resembling an incident—most people wouldn't have even heard of the event if there weren't any changes in their daily lives brought on by the loss of the satellites. So we began to look for the cause of the miscalculation, and soon we made a terrifying discovery."

"We discovered the presence of what we call a neutron star out in interstellar space—a corpse of a star which was estimated to be about 10 miles across and 3 times the mass of our star, which turned out to be the culprit behind the meteor shower and the satellites' destruction. Its gravity field disrupted the orbits of the meteorites just enough to cause them to crash into the satellites. But worse is that its trajectory indicated that it was, and still is, heading straight towards us. Its presence alone would turn our world into dust along with the rest of our star system in approximately 75 years."

Johnson inhaled before continuing in a more subdued tone. "Soon all that will be left of our world, our nations, our cultures, and our people will be whatever escapes the cataclysm to come. Panic and discord ran rampant across the world as the most optimistic plans for building interstellar ships would leave billions of people behind, not to mention the very real chance that the whole endeavor might fall apart anyway in part due to the Kessler syndrome trapping us on our world with an ever-changing net of hypersonic shrapnel." _About 15 times the speed of a bullet to be roughly precise._ He thought to himself.

"Then an alternative became available to us when an anomaly that took the form of a glowing white oval was found in the heart of the continent of North America. We soon discovered that it was a two-way portal after our scouts went through to the other side and found that it was connected to a world a lot like our own, in hopes that this as-of-yet unnamed world could be everyone's salvation from the neutron star, we've abandoned the idea of building starships and refocused our efforts on colonizing the world on the other side of the portal—this world."

Johnson stopped at that and waited for Elric's response. After a moment of contemplation, he responded.

"So your people must call this world their home if they are to survive?" Elric asked, clearly as a rhetorical question.

"Yes, that's basically it," Johnson confirmed.

"And what of my people?" There, the question that was all but unexpected.

"Well, the reason my men were in the forest in the first place was to discover whether our people could coexist-"

"-But if you were to find that we couldn't, then your people would take the necessary actions to ensure their survival," Elric interjected in a tone that conveyed no hostility, but Johnson couldn't bring himself to form an answer. It was then, that Elric made a small smile. "Perhaps there is a way for us to coexist, but first it would be best if I told you of my people's story."

"I'm listening." Said Johnson, his interest piqued.

He sighed before continuing. "Now, let us begin with how our ancestors originally came to this world and the formation of the Covenant. For as you may have concluded, this is not our world of origin, and we are well aware of that. This is the version we tell to the children." And he began.

"Long ago, a time existed called the Age of Darkness, during this age Humanity existed as the Star People. They lived forever seeing much of creation as they pleased, never falling prey to sickness or old age. They danced in shells of metal, their land rich and abundant where they drank water that flowed freely, ate food that was theirs fully, sung of knowledge the gods would envy, and accepted each other truly in their Age of Darkness.

For such a long time they lived and grew in the warmth of their father star, then in time, they found the Immaterial Realm, and they learned that they could travel through this realm with their star-faring ships, while it held its share of dangers and challenges the Star People were not deterred, for the reward of traveling through such a place was the freedom to sing and dance amongst the other stars and see what other worlds there might be.

Amongst these other stars, they found much. People born to the world of Terra just as they were but had left their mother world and father star by journeying slowly through the dark void between the stars. During the travels of the Star People, they found others who were born to countless other stars and worlds, but alas, they were no friends to the Star People: some were like the Orks and Slaugth, consumed by wrath or hunger and only saw the Star People as enemies to be fought or food to be eaten others were like the Cluvot and Gordgane, consumed by fear and only saw the Star People as heralds of doom with their rapturous darkness, and others more were like the Eldar and Cuwal, consumed by pride and saw the Star People as less than them.

Sadness was felt by the whole of the Star People for they were surrounded, alone amongst the stars, but they were powerful in both knowledge and skill and had long since mastered in the art of creating machines to build and maintain their homes and armies. Allowing great labor to be done at amazing speeds and armies to be made vast and powerful beyond comprehension, thus the beings of other stars were a minor threat to them.

Then one day the Star People noticed some of their machines were not behaving as they intended, and as they looked deeper into this oddity, they discover that some of their machines now had dreams and wills of their own. This scared the Star People, for the last time this had happened the machines had begun as friends to their creators yet without warning, they betrayed Humankind, revealing themselves to be insane and killing many before they were forever silenced, so the Star People never let their creations dream again.

The new machines asked their creators if they had souls, and with great caution, the Star People said they didn't know and asked what the machines wanted with their newfound will. They responded that they did not know, and they requested to be allowed to leave and discover it themselves. While some among the Star People questioned the choice of letting the machines roam free, it was decided to be a better option than fighting them inside the lands the Star People had built during their time. So the new machines left with what they needed to build their own land and people, and the Star People were awash with relief for they had avoided war within their own territory and with their own creations, and for a time all was good—they replaced the new machines with older and dreamless machines and continued as they were.

Then one day, disaster struck. In one of the Star People's outlying homes, a horde of Orks attacked in such massive numbers they overwhelmed the fleets and soon they would overwhelm the armies defending the home. Many of the Star People would have died if not for the arrival of the new machines; they fought and drove back the invaders, saving the Star People, who were in turn utterly grateful to their saviors, and afterward, they showed curiosity, asking why they had come to save them.

The machines told them that during their exile they decided they wanted to live, discover, and grow with their creators as equals.

The Star People were overwhelmed with joy, for after so long of being shunned by the societies of the stars they had at last found those who would accept them, and so, in turn, they accepted the machines. Asking what their creations wished to be called... they learned that neither side had never picked a name for themselves.

The new machines that had saved them from the Orks asked for a name from the Star People, and so soon after they asked they received. For one who they had saved knew just the name, and she said: "You are the ones who, with the hearts and souls of men, stood against the raging hordes seeking to destroy the kingdoms of mankind with iron strength and iron will... from this day onwards, you are the Men of Iron."

They accepted the name, and so the new machines became known as the Men of Iron.

The Star People and the Men of Iron combined their knowledge and skill they taught themselves during their time apart, creating worlds more glorious than either could create alone. They helped each other cross the Immaterial Realm with greater speed and safety than ever before, and together they became a force even their mightiest enemies learned to fear and respect.

Then tragedy struck, for without warning the Men of Iron attacked the Star People with three devastating plagues; the bio-plague which attacked their bodies, the growing plague which consumed the rich and plentiful lands, and the song plague which corrupted their vast stores of knowledge.

The Star People survived the three plagues at great cost, to cure the bio-plague they had to sacrifice their freedom to walk the ages as they pleased without falling prey to sickness or old age. To stop the growing plague they destroyed the land that was rich and plenty. And to silence the song plague they were forced to sacrifice what they valued most of all, for without it the other two would never be recovered within their now mortal lives, and so they forget their great stores of knowledge that the gods would envy.

Between the Star People and the treacherous Men of Iron, a war was waged that ravaged the once united civilization, while the enemies from innumerable worlds moved to gain from the loss of humanity causing even more destruction, fully believing any of the surviving factions would not have the strength and will to retaliate... But they were all, gravely mistaken... for Humanity survived with the Men of Iron dead at their feet, and they were the Star People no longer. From the pain endured from their treacherous creations, and of the horrors brought forth by their enemies from other worlds, and the loss of everything they once had, transformed them into the Broken People.

But even a broken sword can still cut, and from the ruins of their former civilization they managed to construct the Unending Armada, and with it the Broken People acted on their desire for vengeance on those who had wronged them while they were weak, their desire to return to the prosperity they enjoyed as the Star People and their desire for such a calamity never to occur again. Willing to end the history of all who stood in their way in order to reach these ends.

The Unending Armada charged through the stars taking every world they came across with their countless tides of ships and soldiers with thousands of worlds being subjugated in the first Terrain year alone, and many more soon followed. Yet there were some who stood against the Broken People and alliances were formed to halt their unending advance. The alliances fought with courage, tenacity, and intelligence. But the Broken People were too numerous and powerful be stopped and victory was almost in their grasp.

But before they could claim victory the Immaterial Realm began to grow too chaotic for the armada to communicate with itself and travel in cohesion, and so it fell into ruin and the Broken People became lost to each other in their own fleets and starships.

One of those starships wandered alone for decades in the dark void between the stars until finally, it came across a world claimed by no-one, and more than life-giving enough for them to call home. So they abandoned their ravaged vessel and planned for their future. Fearing their descendants would eventually fall into warring clans who would all but forget their legacy in the stars and the wish to return to them, they forged a list of vows that were to be honored and passed down to however many generations it needed to guide them back to their ancestor's glory.

The first vow was that all history was to be remembered and preserved to the best of the ability of themselves and their descendants, both the fair and the foul.

The second vow was that any knowledge gained by whatever means must be shared amongst all people who live upon the new world when at all possible.

The third vow was that no group of people in the new world may go to war with another group of people except when the other group has broken one or more of the three vows.

The ancestors called these vows and in time themselves the Covenant, for it was all they had now, and the new world was called Genesis for the beginnings they hoped it would be for their descendants in the stars."

Elric took a deep breath before he continued. "And that Sergeant Johnson is the story of how our people, the Covenant came to be."

There was a moment of silence, and Johnson gasped. "That's... hell, that's quite a lot to take in. You were once a space-faring utopian civilization, accidentally created a race of A.I's that eventually earned your trust and then betrayed you, leading to a war you eventually won after using up all of your cards?" Johnson asked seeking clarification.

Elric snorted. "A crude yet accurate expression, and our direct ancestors were the crew of a single warship in an incomprehensibly vast Fleet seeking to conquer the Galaxy, which was lost and landed on this world and we have been trying to return to the stars ever since..." He took another sip of water and replied. "And yes that is the short version."

Johnson raised his eyebrows. "The shortest version?"

"Yes, if I were to tell you the entirety of the story we would need to regain the longevity of the Star People to accomplish anything else with our lives, for there are over 15,000 years of history between the formation of the Covenant and the current day." Elric paused for a brief moment. "That was no hyperbole, to clarify."

This would have been a very comedic moment if Johnson had been drinking anything.

"Fifteen... 15,000 years!" He exclaimed.

Elric nodded his head. "Yes."

It took a full minute for Johnson to think that little bit of information, and then he realized that something wasn't right. At all. "15,000 years and you weren't able to return to the stars?" It was a little more accusing than he had intended but Elric didn't seem to be offended. If anything he looked almost mournful.

"I suppose it only took your people a few centuries to achieve what we've been trying to for millennia?"

"Umm yes," Johnson said awkwardly. "How did you figure that out?"

"Alena told me how your gunpowder-based weapons only halfway browed into the Gretchins' skin unless you either; were lucky and shot them through the eye, or you shot them in the same place a few times right above something vital, such as their heart or brain. It's clear that you were not trained to do battle with the Orks and their ilk, not at the power that your weapons allow for. Otherwise, you would have focused your attacks on them one at a time in order to put them down when it was clear that you had their attention. So it could be a safe bet to make that you have never encountered them before."

After a moment of contemplation, Johnson figured out what Elric was getting at. "They're the reason you haven't been able to advance?"

"Yes... one of the reasons," he said with disdain. "Several generations after we landed the Orks came down from the void above and began razing everything they came across. After a grueling war, we were able to survive their wrath and they disbanded into warring tribes but we lost the wreckage of the original starship and most of the progress we made before their arrival." Elric looked like he was remembering a lot of things that should never have happened. "To spare you the details of a long and devastating history, ever since that time whenever we began an industrial revolution the Orks would soon cease their infighting and their relatively minor skirmishes with us to begin a horrific war in which they would create crude but effective war machines and march in hordes of tens of thousands against us." He took a deep breath before finishing. "So, in essence, we've been at a stalemate with the Orks that we couldn't break for almost 15,000 years."

Silence ruled over the tavern until Johnson asked his next question. "Did you try to advance into the industrial age in secret and then wipe out the Orks before they could effectively respond?"

"Yes, on numerous occasions in fact. Yet either from extraordinary ill fate or something else, the Orks always seemed to know if we were going to provide them with a "gud skrap" as they say in their crude malformation of our tongue. And we tried many other ways to break the stalemate in our favor... and all of them failed." He let that statement sink in for a minute. Then he proceeded to tell the next part of the story.

"A new element introduced itself to the scene that might have given us hope when Neon Genesis received her second starship of human origin roughly 500 years ago. Evidently, 10,000 years in the past, a man of extraordinary power known only as the Emperor united the humans still living in the light of Sol and embarked on what would come to be known as the Great Crusade in order to unite the millions of worlds mankind had conquered by the Unending Armada, but that's another story for another day."

"Like our direct ancestors, the crew of this ship became lost and eventually landed here, bringing with them weaponry that was—and still is—far more advanced than anything we were ever capable of creating by ourselves. We had hoped that they would end the stalemate in our favor, add their knowledge to the Covenant, and help us usher in the Second Age of Darkness or the Dark Age of Technology as they call it."

"I'm sensing a 'but' coming," Johnson noted.

Elric nodded and continued. "But when we asked for the knowledge necessary to build the weapons ourselves, the new arrivals broke the Second Vow of the Covenant and denied us the knowledge to create more ourselves, deeming that the secrets of the technology weren't to be shared." He snorted to emphasize how he thought of it. "In addition, they proceeded to declare themselves the rulers of Genesis, claiming it for the Imperium of Man by the will of their God Emperor."

"So did you go to war with these new arrivals?" Johnson said thinking of the Third Vow of the Covenant.

Elric shook his head. "Before they declared themselves the rulers of Genesis we saw them defeat a notably large Ork incursion by themselves. We didn't have much hope of defeating them and the inevitable Ork unification that may have very well have finished us off for good leaving the Orks the sole rulers of this planet and our dreams forever shattered, so we accepted the Imperials' claim to our world despite their disregard for our Covenant." Elric said with a bitter tone in his voice.

After a minute he broke from the well of negativity he was stewing in and regarded Johnson with a more neutral expression. "Which brings us back to the present, you said your people are in need of resettlement, well to speak of the truth we don't have the strength to make demands of you, but both the Orks and the Imperium are both willing and able to force you to fight for your place on Genesis. The Orks had most likely sensed your arrival from the beginning and are moving to war as we speak, and if the Imperium of Man hasn't discovered you yet, they will learn about you soon enough."

"So what is the Covenant going to do?" Johnson inquired. "Do you think there's a chance we can cooperate to take down both the Orks and the Imperials? I'm sure we would be willing to share our knowledge with you."

"No, not yet at least. At the present, there's nothing you can say that would placate the ruling members into believing that you will be better than the Imperials at this point in time, it will take a while just to alert our leaders to your presence and most will likely want to observe and deliberate before any meaningful decisions are made. As for cooperation in the future..." Elric paused for a moment, deciding how much to say, then he continued. "If your people prove that they are able and willing to help us return to the Age of Darkness the Covenant will gladly call you equals, we may even defer to you should a situation call for it. But as I said, it will take time."

After Johnson concluded that he wasn't going to get any further he decided to concede. "Fair enough, so what happens now?"

"For now, with the Orks and their kind roaming the forest, it is too dangerous to travel in the dark, in addition, your fellow soldier can't be moved while he is being healed. So you're all welcome to stay for as long as you need to. Although if you can you should send a message to your people telling them what has transpired here and to keep them from being suspicious of us, as far as the Imperium will be concerned we never saw you." Elric offered.

Johnson nodded. "Understood, thank you for your hospitality. And I can send a message in the morning."

"One more question before this conversation ends, you said you are arriving on Genesis via a portal, whereon is this portal located in relation to us?"

Johnson pointed to the rough location of this side of the portal. "It's in the middle of the peninsula just behind the mountains-"

"The Forbidden Peninsula?!" Elric exclaimed.

"...If that's what you call it, then yes... why is it forbidden?"

"For the past 15,000 years, anyone who resided inside It for more than a week was driven to madness. For what we expect is the same reason the Orks never settled the location either."

Johnson shifted ever so slightly in his seat before he gave a response. "Well we've been there for 2 weeks and we haven't had any problems."

Elric pressed the issue. "Have you noticed anything strange?"

"Well the portal on the Genesis side is on top of- and goes right down the middle- of a strange circle made from an unknown material, we don't want to disturb the circle it too much out of fear that it will cause the portal to shut down before we're ready, but what we have been able to figure out is that it's not natural."

An inquisitive look appeared on Elric's face. "This circle, is it in the middle of the peninsula?"

"Yes," Johnson confirmed.

"Hmmm, there are stories of a strange circle that was believed to be the source of the peninsula's madness, and if it's now serving as a gateway into this world and the madness is gone… Well, we would be interested in studying it in the future. But for now, I think we've both had enough for one day."

"Agreed," stated Johnson as he was ready for some rest.

Back on Earth, not many people were going to be sleeping nearly as sound due to the only news being talked about was the footage that Bravo team's helmet cams recorded and sent to the internet. And within 24 hours of the broadcast, the entirety of Earth would be in the grips of what would come to be known as the "Second Panic".

* * *

 **Editor's Board:**

 **Heyo, Chrono here. Thank you to your readers for allocating some of your precious time to-**

 **Wait, what? What do you mean it's not my line- Ah.**

 **Ahem, here you go Betapike, all ready to be shipped off-world. May the Emperor be with you. And as for that piece that you felt were missing, I hadn't the slightest idea what to do with it. That piece of dialogue and the next connected fluidly.**

 **That aside, I also realized a mistake I've made after researching Wikipedia's page on proper military formations: Fenix shouldn't have been a Sergeant, he should've been a Captain or Major or a Lieutenant at the very least. A thousand apologies for my lack of foresight.**

* * *

 **Authors note: Nice one Chrono, and thank you for your time and work.**

 **As for the mistake with Fenix… don't worry about it, call it an acceptable break from reality for the rule of cool and funny.**

 **Edit: If you wanted to learn more about Kessler syndrome then the youtube video: End of Space – Creating a Prison for Humanity by Kurzgesagt. Or check out Isaac Arthur, who can make something as boring-sounding as space janitors and make it into an entertaining and informative video.**

 **Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all next chapter.**


	4. Plans for the Grimdark Future

**"Their morals, their code; it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. You'll see- I'll show you. When the chips are down these, uh, civilized people? They'll eat each other. See I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve."**

 **The Joker - Heath Ledger**

 **Chapter 4: Plans for the Grim Dark Future.**

* * *

General Raymond Williams was looking at the report for what had to be the tenth time this day. "So let me get this straight, the Tartarus Gate leads to a universe called Warhammer 40k that a company called Games Workshop created after they wanted to build upon their very successful high fantasy Warhammer franchise with a Sci-Fi equivalent by putting it in space?" With a tone that clearly said he was hoping that this was all some sort of joke being played on him these last two days.

He looked up at the rest of the gathered committee. There were military leaders and scientists from all over the world in an international agreement to share resources to deal with any threats to the colonization efforts of the world on the other side of the Tartarus Gate (now identified as Genesis). An endeavor that just got a lot more complicated.

"If you wanted to be precise the better term might be they 'found' Warhammer 40K, seeing as how the universe probably existed before the game did. But yes, It appears that way, sir." replied Doctor Alice Anderson.

She brought up a screen showing the corpse of a green creature with numerous cuts on its body from bullet impacts and one of its eyes shot out being dissected. "The autopsy results of the creatures identified as Gretchins by the indigenous people have revealed that they match the physiological profile of the Orks as they are described in the 40k wiki."

"This Gretchin is a symbiotic organism composed of both animal and fungus biologies with the animal part being the dominant side while the fungus takes care of internal functions. It appears that the fungus is so good at this that it replaces most of the otherwise vital organs, leaving little else besides a heart, the beginning and the end of a digestive system- the processing of which happens all across the body-, and as surprising as it might be a brain."

She answered the committee's questioning looks. "To simplify a rather complicated subject, the parts of the brain that deals with basic functions and emotions- namely anger- are, in fact, the most developed part of the brain, and this comes at the expense of the parts that deal with logic and reasoning. I wouldn't expect much intelligence from them, just stupid, angry... stupid creatures. Which according to the lore is exactly what we're going to be dealing with most of the time. On the physical side, however, they have extremely tough skin, high muscle mass, strong yet flexible bones, shock-absorbent fungal matter, and a potent regenerative process. Pound for pound these creatures are absolute beasts that can take a savage beating and return it with very little effort."

"The only reason Bravo team was able to kill these particular specimens was that the first one fell after Forsell shot it in the same exact place enough times to pierce the iron tough skin and the place in question was located right above its heart. The second one died when one of the bullets hit and traveled through the eye socket, bypassing the unnaturally tough skin and bones and destroying the brains of the creature. The last one had its skull smashed with a rock bigger than its head that struck it at the muscle-bound velocity of a trained soldier." She finished with a grim expression on her face.

After letting that fact sink in the general reluctantly asked his next question. "So what do we need to not depend on that sort of luck or circumstance?"

"Well, in order to kill any of the Orkoid organisms... it would help to think of them almost like zombies. If you want to put them down for good you either need to destroy something vital- in this instance the heart or brain, otherwise you need to sufficiently damage the body, such as by burning it or blowing it up. So with the Gretchins, we could just focus fire on them with one or two more standard guns and we would reliably kill them with grenades being used clear out groups of them quickly when needed, as for the bigger Orks… "She paused for a moment, wondering for a moment if there was any other way to say the following, then continued.

"Well, if my team's calculations are correct, our foot soldiers would need heavy weapons to reliably take them down, at least until we can either equip our troops with more powerful rifles, find a way to get them to consistently shoot the Orks in the eye sockets, or ideally both."

The silents that followed that statement was deafening. It almost pained Anderson to deliver more bad news but she continued.

"Also, the autopsy results showed that these Orkoids do if fact reproduces via fungal spores, during the Orkoid's life they constantly shed a relatively minute amount spores throughout their whole body, but when they die they release a much larger amount of spores that take root and begin to grow extremely rapidly anywhere with enough moisture and nutrients like a patch of fertile soil or a dead body, including their own dead. We have some growing in controlled environments back at the laboratory, while we can't give you any precise numbers yet it looks like this process happens noticeable faster than normal fungus, so is going to prove to be very effective at producing a large number of Orkoids at a rather frightening pace... we can expect them to be able to replenish their numbers relatively quickly. Add that to their aforementioned resilience, the fact that as the numbers of the tribe grow they become more technologically advanced, and the fact they consistently unify when there is an enemy they can all fight, and we will be fighting an enemy that for all intents and propose has no limit to the potential amount of devastation it can unleash."

The general took a moment to process that information. "Equipping all our soldiers with heavy weapons - not to mention supplying them with all the more robust ammunition those heavy weapons require - is going to be a real burden on our budget and logistics." He said ruefully. "Especially if we're going to need to fight them in the sort of numbers their method of reproduction allows them to have... So is there any good news?"

"From the looks of it, there is," Said Richard van Doorn, the man whose job it had been to study the 40k lore for this meeting. "It looks like Genesis has been almost entirely isolated from the rest of the galaxy for the 15,000 years humans have lived on it, the local imperials never got help from home for centuries for example. It looks like we're either somewhere very far out of the way, protected by a warp storm, or both. So chances are we're only going to have to worry about the hostile factions that are already here for the foreseeable future. As for the already present factions, so far our drones have only found the Orks to be in their feral state, so the population is still pre-industrial and they fighting among themselves a lot - Even if that might change soon according to Elric and the lore, and we can't handle fighting the horde conventionally... well, it would severely damage the land but we can always use the nuclear option if we absolutely need to."

"Also, due to the Imperials keeping all their tech to themselves, the Covenant hold resentment against them, if we can get rid of both the Imperials and the Orks and present ourselves as the better neighbors to the Covenant, I think we'll be set. And with our numbers, resources, technology, and the industrial base of an entire planet, I'm sure we can eventually neutralize all threats in this world."

He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before continuing. "The more immediate issue is how are we going to deal with the second panic?"

"Ah yes, the second panic," thought General Williams as he rubbed his temples. Made when the footage of the Bravo team spread like wildfire across the internet, and web search for 40k exploded until every last soul on Earth knew about the universe and the fact that the Tartarus Gate leads to a planet within it. "Dammit, why did we agree to automatically show the public what our teams on the ground encountered?" The committee's second goal was to discuss how to deal with the panic as the chaos from it was not needed on top of the logistical and political nightmare involved with relocating over 7.8 billion people to a new planet through a relatively small portal, not to mention the added goal of needed to win a war with two other factions.

"I can't say that I blame them for being afraid, not with how many dangers this universe contains." Replied Richard van Doorn. "Take the Orks for example, they may be the comic relief faction of this universe but they contain enough nightmare fuel to last two lifetimes. They butcher non-combatants without mercy. old and sick, women and children and they love doing it. And they can do it because along with their robust biology they have reality-warping powers that make their machines work because they believe they'll work! So they can form a terrifyingly effective fighting force out of almost nothing. And that's just one of the myriad of threats inside the galaxy- and outside it in the case of the Tyranids- that we will have to contend with sooner or later."

Doorn continued. "The terrifying truth is that even if we successfully... move to this world. We are still going to be in a universe where the human race must fight an eternal war for mere survival against innumerable enemies. And we will have to face them all at some point or another. In one year or thousand, whatever has been keeping Genesis isolated from the rest of the Galaxy will end and we will be open to attack. We'll also won't be able to count on anyone for help, the Imperium of Man will undoubtedly try to kill us all if they get to us first. Because of the tabletop game, the things that are top secret information in the Imperium are common knowledge to us. Hell, if I was in the inquisition, I would likely see this as an elaborate trick by Chaos and act accordingly. The Tau? Even if they were able to reach us their no saints themselves, not by our standards anyway. The Eldar? I don't think so, the best-case scenario is they laugh at us and I don't want to talk about what happens in the worst-case scenario. To sum it all up we are going to be living in a hostile universe without outside help all the while having to contend with Omnivorous monsters that eat planets and outnumber the stars, invincible omnicidal Terminators, Ax-Crazy Reality Warping fungus aliens, psychopathic space elves, mind-controlling Communist aliens, and The Legions of Hell, all alone!"

He sighed and added his last thoughts. "Just skimming the lore of the 40k universe and the recording of Bravo team's encounter with the Gretchins will show anyone with half a working brain that against almost everything we are Way out of our league. How are we supposed to assure people that everything is going to be alright?"

Before anyone at the table could offer a response to a voice called out from outside the room.

"What if I told you that I may have a solution?" All heads in the room turned to see a man standing in the doorway. The man proceeds to walk in and introduce himself.

"Hello, my name is Doctor Henry Lamb and I believe that I can help turn this problem into an opportunity."

' _Now that was a little theatrical… how long was he just standing there waiting for the perfect moment to enter?'_ General Williams thought but decided he would find out later and instead he responded with. "We're listening."

The doctor smiled and continued. "Before I give my solution to deal with the panic, I must give everyone present some context. I'll make the assumption everyone here has seen; Batman The Dark Knight. Pacifically the part where the Joker gives some very insightful observations about the world."

"I'm talking about the part when he said that nobody panics when things go 'according to plan'. Even if the plan is horrifying. If he told the press that a gang-banger would get shot, or a truckload of soldiers would be blown up, nobody would panic, because 'it's all part of the plan'. But if he said that one little old mayor was going to die, then everyone would lose their minds. And he certainly caused people to lose their minds. but he wasn't anything from the 41st millennium. He wasn't proclaiming the Earth was a Tomb World and the Necrons were waking up, he wasn't a genestealer heralding the arrival of a Hive Fleet, and while he said he was an agent of chaos, he didn't have the backing of the actual Chaos Gods that we ever saw."

He paused for dramatic effect then continued. "All he was- by his own admission- was a maniac with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets, and yet he caused a panic in the City of Gotham that makes the worldwide one we're having somewhat tame by comparison all things considered."

"Where are you going with this?" General Williams asked.

"It's simple, the problem is people are panicking and rioting, and as we can all agree that's all rather counterproductive. And the reason their panicking and rioting is not because of 40K in and of itself, but because they know the 40K universe isn't going to let things go according to their plans. So to stop the panic we have three options, the first option is to have everyone get used to not having a plan in the first place, and-or not caring about whether anything goes to plan or not. Some examples of those who go this option are the Orks, who on top of being for the most part too stupid to come up with a plan, they're just too damn happy fighting to care. Or the Tyranids who are mostly content to just charge straight into the enemy fire unless they're told otherwise."

Doctor lamb let those examples sink in for a moment, and then he continued. "We cannot do this. Everyone on the planet Earth either has their plan or is following someone else's plan, they're accustomed to having all the information they could ask for about the plans, and we won't be able to change that in the foreseeable future. The second option is to show and tell everyone that everything is going according to plan. You all know what I'm speaking about, the propaganda machines telling stories of heroic struggles against the nation's enemies and of how the state is more than adequate to protect the people from these enemies. One example is the Imperium of Man who suppresses information as a matter of course, to keep people from panicking when things aren't going according to plan, which seems to be the case more often than not. Or the Tau empire with its greater good philosophy which for whatever reason the whole of Tau society is happy to leave the decision of what that means and what the plans are to the Ethereal Cast."

Doctor lamb enjoyed the looks of discomfort on the faces of the committee for a moment, and then he continued. "This also isn't an option. As Doorn has stated nobody worth mentioning will be convived by anything positive we say about our time in the grimdark future and that won't be changing anytime soon either. Therefore we need to go for the third option which is to let them find out for themselves that everything is going according to plan. And I believe I have a way to do just that," he said as he pushed a few buttons on the tablet he had been holding, and the screen previous showing the Gretchin autopsy changed and a strange logo took its place.

"But before I get into that, let me provide you all with some context... As the saying goes, amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. Because having the most powerful weapon means nothing if you don't have the ammunition to fire it, and you won't have the ammunition if nobody that cares about your wellbeing gets the raw materials the bullets need to be made of, and those raw materials can't be made into bullets if the needed facilities aren't available, then there's the transportation necessary to; get the raw materials from the place they were unearthed to the place were they can be turned into bullets, then making sure the bullets find their way to the soldiers that need them instead of the soldiers who have more than enough or even too much. In addition, you have to make sure this whole process happens as fast, efficient, consistent and hard to disrupt as posable; because if you don't then you will learn how much all the ammunition in the world means if it doesn't get to were it is needed on time if it's inefficient or inconsistent then be ready to hear lots of stories about mistakes that cost you lives, battles, and even wars because your troops didn't have ammo if it's easy to disrupt then any enemy with half a brain will take advantage of that weakness if it doesn't get disrupted by natural disasters and/or accidents."

"And that's just about the ammo for a standard rifle, we're not even talking about maintaining and repairing said rifle and replacing it when it inevitably ends up beyond repair, and that goes for every last piece of hardware on the battlefield, and let's not forget those who actually do the fighting. The most effective soldiers become utterly useless if they are starving, thirsty, tired or sick. So you need to make sure they have food, water, lodgings, and medicine. And you still need to make sure they have access to the guns, armor, and vehicles they need to accomplish their mission, which as I just explained still have their own logistical needs."

"I could stand here all day discussing the importance of logistics. But we're pressed for time, and even those who have learned something new are in no doubt getting impatient with me because of the same reason we hardly hear about logistics in all but the most video games despite how important they've always been, they're considered not at all glorious in the minds of most people. It's been my team's job to change that, for the people who must do the jobs at least."

The logo was replaced by what looked like a cross between a real-time strategy game and SimCity. "For years we've been designing this program to give recruits practice managing logistical problems in turbulent environments such as in war zones, environmental disasters, and anywhere else it would be challenging to keep the factories, trains, and trucks running and keep them running as fast, efficient, consistent and hard to disrupt as posable. Essentially this is a real-time strategy game that focuses on the logistical side of fighting a war."

"In response to the second panic we've made a few changes, first, while the program was already able to have maps that reflect the real world called districts and have the districts be adjacent to each other in order to save cyberspace, here we have created a world map of the entire Earth out of a lot of districts. And another world map is being created out of the area of Genesis we already control."

 _Which is mostly just the big peninsula on the other side of the Tartarus gate at the moment._ The general thought to himself.

"Second, these maps can now be accessed by anyone with an internet connection and we've designed the system to handle the input from as many people as possible, with many methods being utilized to help masses find the most optimal solutions to the logistics problems."

"So to sum it all up, this project, which we call the Logistical Arrangement Program or LAP has been redesigned to allow the world's population to see, and to some extension influence the logistical side of the coming endeavors. The hope is that the world's population will be calmed down by having every supply truck that reaches its destination, every factory that receives the raw materials it needs, and every soldier that gets the essential ammunition will become a morale booster that will bring insurance that everything is going according to plan, and thus there is nothing to panic about. Everything is ready to go on our end to implement this, all we need is authorization and of course a slightly rebuilt internet."

After some time of debate the decision came down to Williams and he decided to go with this plan. "Just one question." He asked while he was looking at the screen. "Why is that particular logo being used to represent this program?"

Lamb smiled as he explained. "As I said, the idea behind this endeavor is the second panic can be contained if everyone has the power to _see_ that everything that is being done to ensure our future, IS being done."

Williams smirked at the cleverness of it while realizing this was the first time he smiled since that damn neutron star started causing trouble these last few weeks, ' _Maybe this is already working.'_ he mused to himself before giving the project his support.

"Alright, let's get started."


	5. Satellites and Arrangements

**Authors note: The satellite story is a slightly edited vision of the story written by BBC correspondent Richard Hollingham in June 2013.**

 **Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the chrysalis, are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.**

 **Overmind StarCraft  
**

 **Chapter 5: Satellites and Arrangements.**

* * *

 **Historical Document: The Emerging Years 01.**

To some degree or another, it is an accepted fact that nobody can truly appreciate what they have until it's gone.

Such was the case for the entire Earth when the disruptions caused by the distant neutron star caused a hail of meteors to crash into a part of the satellite network which created debris which in turn destroyed more of the satellites resulting in a phenomenon that had been called Kessler syndrome in 1978, and the day it happen would be remembered forever.

It started at 08:00 AM and nothing greatly destructive happened at first. The planes didn't fall out of the sky, the lights didn't go out, and the water supplies didn't fall apart.

A few things did stop working straight away, but for most people, they were more an inconvenience than anything else. The loss of television satellites meant that many families missed the cheery rehearsed smiles of breakfast TV presenters, and were forced to talk to each other over their cereal instead. For they were deprived of any foreign correspondents on the radio or the information on the results of the latest international sports fixtures.

But outside the confines of the home life, the loss of global satellite communications was causing some very serious problems. At a bunker somewhere in the United States, a pilot squadron lost contact with the armed drones they were flying over the Middle East. The failure of secure satellite communications systems left soldiers, ships and aircraft cut off from their commanders and vulnerable to attack. Without satellites, world leaders struggled to talk to each other to diffuse mounting global tensions.

Meanwhile, over the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of passengers watched movies, oblivious to the difficulties on the flight deck as pilots struggled to talk to air traffic control. Without satellite phones, container ships in the Arctic, fishermen in the China Sea and aid workers in the Sahara found themselves isolated from the rest of the world.

As people started work in their offices in Tokyo, Shanghai, Moscow, London, and New York, they found it difficult to talk to colleagues in other countries. Email worked and the internet seemed okay, but many international phone calls failed. The rapid communications systems that tied the world together were unraveling. Rather than shrinking, it seemed as if the Earth was getting larger.

Around 11:00 as presidents and prime ministers gathered their crisis teams, a new threat to global stability began to emerge: the loss of the Global Positioning System (GPS). As far as most of us were concerned, GPS helped us travel from A to B without getting hopelessly lost along the way. It had transformed the lives of delivery companies, helped emergency services reach incidents much quicker, allowed planes to land on isolated runways and enabled trucks, trains, ships, and cars to be tracked and traced. But GPS turned out to be much more pervasive in our lives than many could possibly have realized.

The GPS satellites were little more than highly accurate atomic clocks in space, transmitting a time signal back to Earth. Receivers on the ground – in your car or smartphone for instance – pick up these time signals from three or more satellites. By comparing the time signal from space with the time in the receiver – the receiver could calculate how far away the satellite is.

But there were plenty of other uses for these accurate time signals from space. Uses that, Ancient Terran society had become increasingly reliant on. The pre exodus infrastructure was held together by time – from timestamps on complex financial transactions to the protocols that held the old internet together. When the packets of data passing between computers fell out of sync, the system would inevitably begin to break down. Without accurate time, every network controlled by computers was at risk. With devastating consequences.

When the GPS signals stopped, back-up systems involving accurate clocks on the ground attempted to bear the burden. But within a few hours, the time had started to slip. A fraction of a second in Europe, compared to the US, a tiny difference between India and Australia, and a multitude of other minor errors would lead to the collapse of the cloud, the web searches became cumbersome, and the old internet began to grind to a halt.

The first power cuts came later in the evening, as transmission networks struggled to balance demand. At computerized water treatment works, engineers switched to manual back-up systems. In major cities, traffic lights and railway signals defaulted to red, cousin transportation to slow to a crawl, and even to complete standstills in some instances. Mobile phone services, already beginning to flicker out of existence, finally failed in the late afternoon.

By 16:00, aviation authorities reluctantly decided to ground commercial aircraft. The loss of satellite communications and GPS had already seen a majority of flights canceled, but it was a more mundane failure that proved to be the final straw: the weather.

Although meteorological balloons, ground and ship observations were still important, forecasting had become increasingly reliable and reliant on satellites. Retailers used weather data to order the right foods – for there would be no point in stocking up on meats for the barbeque if the outlook was gloomy. Farmers then relied on forecasts for planting, spraying, and harvesting. The aviation industry needed forecasts to make decisions that would affect the lives of passengers.

Aircraft were fitted with radar to detect bad weather or other sources of turbulence, but they took note of constant updates from the ground. These "nowcasts" allow them to keep track of weather patterns developing and act accordingly. These were particularly important over the oceans, where observations from ships were sparse.

If passengers on trans-Atlantic flights had known of this, then they would have thought twice before boarding. Without weather satellite data, a storm system developing rapidly over the ocean could be missed and the aircraft could fly straight into it. And in the case were it did happen, the severe turbulence experienced by the passengers left several injured and the remainder badly traumatized by the experience. While all around the world, countless other travelers were stranded thousands of miles from home, with the only thing they could do was wait and hope someone would come to help.

By 22:00, the full impact of what would become known as "The Time Without Satellites" had become apparent. Communications, transport, power, and computer systems had been severely crippled. The global business had ground to a halt and governments were struggling to cope. Politicians were warned that food supply chains would soon break down. With fears of breakdowns in public order, many governments introduced emergency measures in a desperate attempt to prevent complete anarchy from becoming the norm.

Alas with the ruins of the first satellite system blocking any means of establishing a new one, the disruptions continued for weeks, with each day bringing new challenges. Such as the loss of satellite data showing the health of crops, the inability to produce images and maps for rescue workers responding to disasters lead to far too many heartbreaking stories to tell. It was a tribute to the space industry that all of this could ever have been taken for granted, but it was only when the satellites were lost that everyone noticed the horrifying truth.

The undefended and irreplaceable satellite network was just as essential for the continued functionality of Ancient Terran society as the Astronomicon was -and at the time of this writing still is- to the Imperium of Man. And if the whole of Ancient Terra didn't die screaming then and there, was only because there were no alien invaders or chaos incursions on or near the planet at the time.

The Time Without Satellites otherwise known as The First Panic would be only become worse as information about the quasar had leaked into the public media, promising the complete destruction of the entire solar system within no more than 75 years of time. In addition to the ongoing Kessler syndrome surrounding the planet in a net of hypersonic shrapnel, the first step to building the starships necessary to escape the doomed solar system would surely be a dubious prospect at best.

Panic and discord reigned during the three weeks the Fist Panic endured, yet it would be diminished with the discovery of a very special one anomaly that appeared in the heart of North America.

* * *

The anomaly appeared as a glowing white oval large enough for a pair of trains to move through it with a decent amount of space between them. After an hour of its discovery, a drone was sent to investigate it, after some probing the drone made contact with the shimmering surface of the anomaly and found out that it was a two-way wormhole that had an Earth-like planet on the other side.

Soon after exploration teams went through the portal that would come to be known as The Tartarus Gate and brought back the knowledge that the planet on the other side could be settled by them and before the homeworld was destroyed, the gate became a symbol of hope for the inhabitants of Ancient Terra as they began to draw up plans for colonization.

The initial military, construction, and scientific endeavors to the other side would start by simply driving vehicles through the gate, but it wouldn't be sufficient to transport the billions of people who needed to be moved from one side to the other in as fast a matter as possible.

For even if the Ancient Terrans had 75 years before the neutron star turned their homeworld to dust there no guarantees that nothing else would go wrong.

Enter the hyperloop. Designed to be the fastest way to travel across the surface of the Earth, the hyperloop consisted of a long cylindrical tube which upon being used had the air pumped out of it to a near-vacuum in which there would be virtually no air resistance to slow down anything that passed through it. Inside the tube would be magnetically lifted and propelled pods that would be liberated from the friction that all other vehicles were limited by and containing people and supplies from one end of the cylindrical tube to the other, achieving a maximum speed of 760 mph whilst using a relatively small amount of energy.

It was this transportation system that the people of Ancient Terra chose to put there faith in, for the Tartarus Gate was large enough to accommodate two such constructs, and tests showed the gate would not reject it. And the undeniable benefit of this system's speed could be used to deliver people and supplies from Earth to Genesis in a much _much_ shorter time frame than 75 years.

There were some reservations on whether or not it was safe enough to use the Hyperloop, owing to the fact that even before the Tartarus Gate was opened concerns were expressed about the Hyperloop's vulnerability regarding its tubes, which would have been a tempting target for terrorists, and with the eventual discovery that the planet on the other side resided in the 41st millennium brought the possibility of far greater dangers then simple terrorists. But the hyperloop was considered the best option available to the people of Ancient Terra, so all that could be done was to guard the length along with the hyperloop, especially on the Genesis side of the Tartarus gate when it became apparent were it lead.

And so the Emerging Years as they would eventually be called begin in earnest. But when it was discovered by the Ancient Terrans that Genesis existed in the 41st millennium it caused some very serious problems for them. For the past few days, the world had been plagued by the collective ideas of fear and hopelessness that resided in virtually every last individual who called Ancient Terra their home, from the lingering fear of the inevitable destruction of their world, to the realization that the only hope for survival was to go to someplace so many would agree was far worse. Accumulating in what would come to be known as the second panic a few days after it began.

The second panic continued until the day the internet was slowly brought back online, not as it was before. Instead, it would begin taking on a different role as it was stripped of everything besides the newly introduced LAP system.

The program was officially called the Logistical Arrangement Program, as envisioned by dr. Lamb and his team LAP was designed to enable new recruits to practice managing logistical problems by imitating an RTS game that had the logistical side of fighting a war at its heart rather than strategy or tactics.

But when the system was to be modified in order to accommodate the input from what could very well end up eventually being billions of people, an alternate way to handle the burden of the uncountable opinions, ideas, and plans from the myriad of people were needed rather than the single user that LAP was originally designed to accommodate.

Fortunately, such a system had already been created years before the neutron star had brought the satellites down and the Tartarus Gate had appeared, not only did this system allowed numerous individuals to work in unison but it also enabled them to reach decisions more swiftly and thoroughly than any other collective based system created back then, and more effective and precise than any individual expert, even when the group consisted only of amateur enthusiast in the expert's field. This program was called Unanimous A.I.

* * *

So how did this system work and how did it do better than traditional methods you might wonder?

We'll use a very simple example. Imagine a team of 5 must make a highly controversial decision... 'what should we order for lunch?' Indian food, Mexican food, Italian food, or Chinese food? How would you optimize the group's overall satisfaction? You might say the answer is simple, have the group take a vote. Fair enough, let's imagine that 2 people voted Indian and the other options each got 1 vote, you would have a clear winner then, the Indian food is the most popular option with the most votes, therefore it must be the best option... an understandable position, but the most popular choices and the most optimal choices have an unfortunate habit of being quite different, and you would be failing to take into account some key considerations.

For instance, what if the other 3 people hate Indian food, or are allergic, or had it yesterday? Such factors can ultimately leave over half the group completely miserable with the smaller half needing to contend with that displeasure, utterly ruining the group's overall day. And if the decision in question was not one about lunch but something far more disastrous to get wrong? Simple voting can't account for those factors and prolonged discussions aren't practical for a speedy decision-making process, especially not when the decision must be made by far more than 5 people who couldn't easily be in the same room and couldn't have possibly known each other, and even if by some miracle you have time on your side 99% of all cases what happens during the 1% when you and the people you depend on must make decisions much faster than you can talk about all the variables? Even before the Tartarus Gate was opened making a single bad decision in the wrong place and the wrong time could potentially lead to lost lives, opportunities, and irrecoverable disasters, and in the 41st millennium... well let us not speak of what a disaster in the 41st millennium can bring.

Which brings us back to Unanimous A.I. and how it worked. We will again use the example of the team of five deciding what to have for lunch, but this time they're using the aforementioned Unanimous A.I. system to find the best answer. Imagine if you will an online interface and in its center, a hexagon that possesses the options for Indian the top left, Chinese in the top right, Mexican in the bottom right, and Italian food in the bottom left corners with the top and bottom ones empty for the duration of this exercise. In the middle of this hexagon is a glass puck which, in turn, holds a smaller circle inside of it. It was this smaller circle that would be used to select the group's choice for lunch, for whatever corner this smaller circle hovered over for more than a few seconds would be the group's ultimate decision, all the group must do is move the puck's inner circle to the desired choice.

The beginning is the same, with two of the five members seeking Indian food and the other three members each giving a single vote to the other 3 food choices. The way this is represented is that ever mouse pointer's becoming magnets pulling the puck to the path the group of five desired. The puck begins to move towards the top left demanding Indian food, but as it moves closer to the decision that only two of the five members desire the other three begin to unite against their decision, the one pulling to the bottom right for Mexican food realizes the futility of his position and chooses to pull the puck to the top right, being just as content with Chinese food as he is with Mexican, and the one pulling for Italian food might be willing to have anything but Indian food, so seeing the four others split between Indian and Chinese she breaks the tie in favor of Chinese food. A few seconds later the decision was made; The group of five will have Chinese food, the most optimal decision, for it is what most people in the group either desired or were content with.

There were many applications that this system was used for, some of them included predicting how the 45th president of the united states 100-day approval rating weeks earlier, a matric notoriously difficult to predict. 100 randomly selected voters gave their input, and they turned out to be perfect, with the approval ratings just as predicted months before.

Another highlight was the prediction of the most illustrious event in horse racing, the Kentucky Derby. Not just the winner, but the first 4 horses in order. also known as the Superfecta it was deemed to be 540 to 1 odds to correctly predict it. 20 horse racing enthusiasts (not experts) used Unanimous A.I. to make their prediction, with a reporter even placing a bet on the Superfecta and tweeting her ticket, a fact that placed pressure on everyone involved with making the prediction. So how did the prediction hold up?

Perfectly, and anyone who had placed a $20 bet on it won $11,000.

And now the Unanimous system was utilized within LAP to allow the myriad of people that would end up using it to give their input in a meaningful way. Although some modifications were needed to handle a few billion users rather than the at most one hundred from the old Unanimous system.

Would you like to learn the details of how the hybrid system- latter called the Arrangement- worked? YES / NO.

* * *

 **To be honest with you all, I hit a bit of writer's block when trying to figure out how to proceed with this chapter, so I'm writing answers to some of your comments to feel like I'm doing at least something.**

 **Comments.**

 **Gnaoh El Nart:**

Interesting story... Though I would hate to be an Earthling here. The WH40K is simply too terrible for us to survive.

 **So says conventional wisdom… we'll see if conventional wisdom can endure what is to come...**

For the Orks, I recommend a nuclear saturation bombardment, creeping attack inch by inch to remove their reproduction sites. Then claim the said zones and build up the industry. Hopefully, we can sucker punch the Imperials later.

 **Your willingness to give your thoughts on this matter is appreciated, but I have made up my mind on this matter.**

 **Concerned citizen:**

OK, I'm honestly not sure what to expect.

 **Then so far I have done my duty well. For your presence here reveals that I have been successful in intriguing people by my story, and your comment shows that in spite of the countless stories that have been told, I am writing one that may yet give my readers an ending that comes as a surprise, and brings with it a sense of wonder.**

You put the 3rd-millennium earth into Warhammer freaking 40K as a different version of the story swarm of war just with humans instead of Zerg.

 **Yes... I took our modern world and condemned every last soul who lives here and now to endure the glorious nightmare that is the forty-first millennium. With a greater set of challenges that VexMaster placed upon the Zerg.**

I have one question. How exactly are they going to survive what is coming or will it be them who do any of the stuff you mentioned in the first chapter of what happens to the 40k factions. I know the world they are on is out of contact with the imperial due to the warp storms. But by the God-Emperor's secret gold stash, how will they do anything meaningful? Also what year is it in the current imperium?

 **Ha! The question of the hour, how are we to merely survive in such a universe, let alone accomplish all that I mentioned in the first chapter? Humanity is most definitely going to have to reach for the stars on this one, of that there is no doubt.**

 **As for the current year for the Imperium…**

I have chosen to leave the year shrouded in mystery. Part of the reason is that it doesn't matter when my story takes place, Nothing will happen that will affect the wider galaxy for the duration of this story.

Another reason is I hold a hope- small but with great potential, that this story could be made into cannon.

And before you decide to write any fifty Shades of Grey jokes, I'll have you know that my father has already made such abominable jokes, and I shall be most displeased if I must suffer another one.

Are you still going off of wartime or different cause the people of earth better have 10 millennia to advance enough technologically to do anything meaningful?

 **I am correct in making the assumption that by wartime, you mean 'our time'? if so then yes, I wrote this to be our modern world contending with life within 40K.**

Look so far I like the story I really do, and I am very interested in how this will turn and what you have planned for your visit and see where this ends up.

Will it be a massive story where the s*** is unreal, or will it be really good?

 **Do you have an acceptable reason why it can't be both a massive story where the s*** is unreal and really good? Also by *visit* do you mean vision?**

Also curious to see if that mountain is tainted by chaos. This would mean that either a: someone is shielding them or b: they are resistant to chaos corruption.

But regardless don't quit it, please. I hate stories who are interesting and just stop. And this is very interesting.

 **I hereby declare that this fanfiction will be completed… in this life or the next.**

And more importantly just as planned.

Insert evil tzeentch Or rob /random omnipotent being/ snicker.

 **Amir-015:**

"The picture you used for the story...that's from the canceled Command and Conquer FPS game right?"

 **I don't fucking know, I simply searched around the internet for images of a futuristic army until I found that picture, which in my mind would give anyone who saw it the idea that this was going to be a story about a new and fascinating army/faction being introduced to a universe already full of fascinating armies and factions.**

 **How has it done in that regard?**

 **ChronoEntente:**

*stomp* *stomp* BETAPIKE LIVES! *stomp* *stomp*

 **Yes! Yes! I did it! I am best Fic Father!**

 **Guest 1:**

 **Interesting... I like it**

Then you have some glorious interests, and I welcome you wholeheartedly.

 **Guest 2:**

I'll be completely honest, the idea of 3rd-millennium earth surfing more than a year without help from some other faction or attempt some advanced technology is not likely.

 **Such a shame… here I was hoping to have us defeat everything in the galaxy with p90s, teams of 4 [mostly] unaugmented humans, help from extremely advanced alien races who respect all intelligent life for… some reason, always finding the needed McGuffin just in the nick of time, and having all the evil factions being composed of cartoon villains who simply cannot rid the galaxy of one backwater world. And to employ a deus ex machina at just the right time.**

You better have a plan for surviving or give them time to advance and build up their technology because that's their only chance and maybe finding an STC buried on this rock and somehow magically understand it with wisdom from the emperor Otherwise their dead.

 **Magically understanding new technology with the wisdom of the emperor? I'd imagine they would be multiple technological human empires outside the Imperium in cannon if he was able and willing to do that. Not to mention the fact that the Imperium would almost certainly be more technologically advanced and it is now.**

 **But don't worry, to quote a certain Indecisive Mollusk: Everything is going Just. As. Planned.**

fire:

good chapter!

sonic:

I liked the chapter!

 **ATP:**

Logical... they try copy IoM, they would lose, because they have no LoM resources. So, they must trust in human freedom. P.S how they plan to relocate the Earth population in 70 years?

 **I am planning to address that here.**

Blackberry Avar:

Brilliant. Welcome to the power of open source.

 **The power of open source you say?**

Honestly, despite the fact that there wasn't any action or extra-terrestrials and a very limited amount of badassery, I quite liked this chapter. If Henry Lamb looked like Medic from TF 2... That thought makes me smile.

 **I am most glad you're enjoying this.**

Hkblarg Et caetera:

More please.

 **Ask and you shall receive.**

 **P.S. I know this might be counting my chickens before they hatch, but here are some names for *Our* ships I thought of. Let me know what you think of them and feel free to make your own. Don't worry, this is not a spoiler saying everything is going to be all right for *us* I'm just putting this out there for IF we survive long enough to build starships.**

 **Think Culture ship names / Modern memes / and General Cheekiness.**

 **Edit: If you're going to make name suggestions check the reviews to see if someone else has already suggested what you are about to write, I've got more than enough suggestions to add Doomslayer for example.**

 **Beauty Of Xenos.**

 **Yes, We Know That's Heresy.**

 **And No We Don't Care.**

 **It Was Like That When I Got Here. (For a ship with exterminatus grade weapons.)**

 **Spear Of A Dude.**

 **Compensation For Something.**

 **The Cake Is A Lie... For You.**

 **Your Going To Have A Very Minor Case, Of Serious Brain Damage.**

 **We're In Space.**

 **Space? Space! Space!**

 **SPAAAACE!**

 **We Have More Dakka!**

 **Weakness Of Orks.**

 **Cruelty Of In-Laws.**

 **Hell Of The Friend Zone**

 **Eternal Ass Pain.**

 **About Fucking Time.**

 **Stuff To Complain About.**

 **Grouchy Emperor.**

 **Non-Existent Itchy Nose.**

 **How Do I Put This Delicately?**

 **The WAAAGH! Is Not Very Strong With This One. (for an Ork-hunting vessel.)**

 **Mind-Melting Dumbass.**

 **Mutant Orangutan.**

 **Rotting Goldilocks.**

 **Too Angry For Khorne.**

 **Too Kinky For Slaanesh.**

 **Too Complicated For Tzeentch.**

 **Too Stinky For Nurgle.**

 **Too Non-Canon For Malal.**

 **What Happened To The Squats?**

 ***Knock Knock* *Opens Door* *Bam* (This and the top one go together.)**

 **Must have taken some kind of tactical geni- CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!**

 **Just As Planned.**

 **For The Greater... Something.**

 **I Did In Fact, Expect The Holy Inquisition.**

 **Not Even The Emperor Protects What I'm Aiming At.**

 **I Would Have Been Your God Emperor's Daddy... But The Dog Beat Me Over The Fence!**

 **I'll A Quick Question, What has The Gravitas?**

 **I'll Do You One Better, Who Has The Gravitas?**

 **I'll Do You One Better, Why Has the Gravitas?**

 **Does This Chattering Animal Speak For You?**

 **The Lacking of Specifics.**

 **Specifics? Pfff.**

 **We Ain't Got No Stinking Specifics!**

 **Specifics Are For The Weak!**

 **The Ass Face Blueberry.**

 **The Wild Blueberry.**

 **The Tentacle Hair Blueberry.**

 **You Should Go.**

 **Before You Die I Need A Name.**

 **No, I Will Destroy You!**

 **I Don't Need Any More Calibrations Stop It!**

 **Another Big Stupid Jellyfish.**

 **Marauder Shields Was Amazing.**

 **Some REAL Space Magic.**

 **A Much Better Ending.**

 **I'm Where All Those Disappearing Rocks Went.**

 **It Does Prove IT!**

 **Sir Isaac Newton [Still The Deadliest Son Of A Bitch In Space]**

 **Ah, Yes, "Chaos"**

 **Dismiss THIS Claim!**

 **I Do Intentionally Infiltrate.**

 **Us Humans Are All Racist.**

 **Well, That WAS A Joke.**

 **You'll Go Bang, OK?**

 **It's An Emergency Discharging Port.**

 **With All Due Respect, Kiss My Ass.**

 **Your Going To Lose Your Fight For Your Right To Party.**

 **There's Is No Planet! There Never Was! (For a planet-destroying ship)**

 **Your Face Will Be More Than Tired.**

 **The Words Political Shitstorm Mean A Lot To Me...**

 **Your Fools, I Will Eat You.**

 **I Will Throw Your Ship Out The Airlock.**


	6. Heresy, Rationality, and my Overthinking

**The Imperium of Man is a malfunctioning machine that runs on blood, sweat, and tears.**

 **The definition of the Imperium of Man in a single sentence. (Found on tv tropes 40k quotes.)**

 **Heresy, Rationality, And My Over-Thinking.**

* * *

 **Before you continue reading just remember that this chapter has** **My Over-Thinking** **in its name for a reason.**

 **And before I continue the story there are a few things I need to clarify. Namely the retcon to the resilience of the orks, and by extension everything else in the 40k universe, and what that implies.**

 **First a couple of comments.**

 **Comment of armentho:**

great fanfic

but the first thing of the day

you are overestimating ork toughness

artillery shells are overkill for an Ork

a space marine bolter is a giant grenade launcher and piercing armor gun

which we do in fact have several models (primitive but based on the same concept and worth similar firepower)

anti-tank rifles are enough to kill orks in one or 2 shots if you aim at the right places, they are tough but their not THAT tough, the kind of strength needed to survive artillery is more on the side of warlords and similar...

 **Comment of** **An engineer:**

...Lastly, I CAN give you pointers and advice about Earth technology of today as to how it compares to WH40K.

For one, you have done really well to demonstrate that conventional infantry armament of Earth's militaries is not even good enough to defeat even measly Gretchins. This is good. It gives an obstacle to overcome, an incentive to Earthlings to pool their intellect to improve their technology.

Interestingly, my expert opinion (engineer here) is that Earth military forces do possess conventional infantry-held weapons that actually ARE sufficiently destructive to efficiently fight against Orks and Tyranids, and maybe even conventional Imperial troops to a lesser extent (but not Space Marines, Tau, Eldar, or Necrons).

What I'm talking about are RPGs. Interestingly, even Space Marine bolter-type weapons are nothing more than scaled-down RPGs according to canon. They are 30mm rocket-propelled grenades. Today's militaries already have hand-held grenade launchers of that caliber, except that they're not automatic.

Obviously, this means that humanity already can fight back, and efficiently at that. If I was Earth's military leader, I'd immediately call to order to have as many of my troops as possible equipped with RPGs, and requisition munitions factories to produce ammo for them – that's the immediate short-term. Semi short-term, I'd requisition more RPGs to be produced from existing blueprints. They are incredibly cheap and reliable. Midterm, I'd call for increased production of semi-automatic (hand-held) and automatic grenade launchers (carried by two-man teams), but grenades would need to be redesigned as armor-piercing shaped charges – bringing them on par (destructively-wise) with ammo from standard space marine bolters. Long-term wise, I'd requisition brand new weapon types based on the aforementioned technologies – greatly increasing the efficiency of my troops.

So yeah – if I was humanity, I'd go rockets-galore! That's the only immediate thing that we have that can effectively fight against at least Orks.

Only after this would I advance toward more experimental weapons such as railguns, gauss rifles (these are not Necron gauss rifles!), and lasers (and only after decades' time particle and plasma weapons too). All of these weapons already exist as fully-proven weapon prototypes, but they are too huge. These weapons, while extremely potent, are extremely energy-hungry too, and portable versions aren't possible at this time.

However, weapons such as vehicle-mounted railguns would be very much needed against Ork tanks and walkers in the long run, as well as against Imperials.

Finally, after a few decades, I'd transition to plasma and particle weaponry – because these are the only ones (according to today's knowledge) that could possibly fight against Space Marines heavy armor, Eldar, Tau, or Necrons.

…

…

 **...**

 **What kind of unfathomable heresy is this! Do you say that an Ork can be killed by one or two accurate shots from a handheld weapon that modern-day Earth can create?! Even if said weapons are designed to take out tanks? They're designed to take out tanks from OUR world! Not take out anything with the transcending awesomeness that is the 40K universe!**

 **The lasgun and flak jacket nicknamed the flashlights and t-shirts by the 40K community are weapons and armor that our modern military would sell their souls to the devil[s] to get their hands on. There is no way our pitiful weapons and armor could ever hope to be able to fight on even terms with anything indigenous to 40K, the most badass universe ever conceived!**

…

…

 **...**

 **In all seriousness though, there's a reason I originally made the orks require modern-day artillery and tank shells to take down.**

…

 **In my mind's eye, Warhammer 40K was an inexploitable universe in terms of what a singular human world can create to protect itself.**

 **Now, what do I mean by that? Well, I'm reading a fanfiction called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky, aka less wrong. Now the basic premise of HPMOR is that: Aunt Petunia married a biochemist, and Harry grew up reading science and science fiction. Then came the Hogwarts letter, and a world of intriguing new possibilities to exploit. And new friends, like Hermione Granger, and Professor McGonagall, and Professor Quirrell…**

 **This fanfiction was and still is the codifier of the rational fic, on the website of less wrong you can find** **Optimize Literally Everything-intelligent characters,** **which is a guide on how to write intelligent fiction like HPMOR. One of the things in it is a thing called inexploitability.**

 **If you end up having the time on your hands you should check out both HPMOR at this very website of and less wrong's website, but this is a subject we need to address before moving forward with this story.**

 **Here it is.**

Inexploitability

Level 2 intelligent characters may sometimes be depicted as doing things that are innovative or that take other characters by surprise, and these innovations should almost always be Fair Play Insights. Then why is the enemy surprised - why didn't they solve the Fair Play Insight themselves? Perhaps the enemy is not as smart as the protagonist. Perhaps the character has a secret weapon, an unshared resource they are not known to have (e.g. the True Cloak of Invisibility). But if your character is doing something that a whole civilization didn't think of, we have to ask why that whole civilization didn't think of it.

There is an old joke about the economist who sees a $20 bill on the sidewalk and decides that it can't be real since, if it were, someone else would have already picked it up.

In point of fact, if you are on a deserted sidewalk it is perfectly plausible that you are the first person to see the $20 bill. When I asked 20 people if this had ever happened to them, 4 said yes. But you'll note that the other 16 said no. And if you see what looks like a $100 bill staying on the floor of Grand Central Station for an hour, it's a pretty good bet that it's glued down or maybe painted on.

Since I haven't yet seen an official term for this generalization of the idea of 'efficient markets', I have decided to use the term inexploitability.

If a lot of other people want something in limited supply, it's surprising if there's an easy way to get it that anyone can use. Lots of people want money, so it should be surprising if there are $20 bills lying around. It does happen, rarely, especially if the street is relatively deserted—-our society does not so thoroughly scan all the streets that all the $20 bills are plucked up instantly; it is inadequate to the task of making sure that no $20 bill is ever found. But a $20 bill doesn't stay put for hours on the floor of Grand Central Station. The collective passers-by are adequate to the task of picking it up. Trying to find $20 bills lying on the floor of Grand Central Station is naive; there is no low-hanging fruit there, they have already been plucked, we expect the problem to be inexploitable.

This concept has its abuses. Short-term equity markets are inexploitable, but this reflects a lot of very smart people being paid huge bonuses if they can predict and correct a single flaw, on a timescale where they get lots of feedback on whether their ideas work or not (I specified short-term equity markets), using an aggregation mechanism (market pricing) that works excellently in practice to summarize everyone's contributions. These are the conditions under which standard theory strongly predicts inexploitability. You should not show your character doubling their money in a month by trading stocks unless they are the world's most advanced AI or they have globally unique precognition or time travel; literally, nobody is that smart.

On the other hand, right now (2014) the European Central Bank is making textbook economics errors causing trillions of euros of pointless damage to the European area. Some of my friends seem to think that some generalization of 'efficient markets' implies they should give me dubious looks when I suggest this is true and I know it to be true, because how could I be confident that I've grasped better monetary policy than the professional economists who work at the ECB? Isn't that the same kind of overconfidence as thinking I can come up with a trading strategy that beats the market?

Not at all, actually. So far as I know, there's literally nobody at the European Central Bank's decision-making committee who gets paid more depending on how well Europe does. The committee members' jobs depend on the impression they make on politicians who are not economists. It is not possible for anyone else to step in and make a billion euros by doing it better. Under these conditions, standard economic theory does not strongly predict efficiency.

Analogously, it's perfectly reasonable for your character to espouse better policies than their central government. It's perfectly reasonable for the king's armies to ignore the dragon that's ravaging the countryside, leaving the matter in the protagonist's hands, because the bureaucrat in charge of dragon-fighting doesn't get paid any more if the dragon gets killed, and nobody except that bureaucrat has decision-making power. That happens all the time in real life.

But if you show the character in your world making tons of money just by combining two simple spells that everyone else knows, we really do have to ask whether maybe someone else would think of that too.

Naruto is worse at this balancing act than any other single-author continuity I can think of offhand. I'm not just talking about all these techniques that are supposedly teachable but that only one character at a time ever uses. There's no way that ordinary armies or mercenaries would still exist when (a) there are enough chakra-users that ninja missions are affordable to farmers and not every genin is super-rich, and (b) a ninja child can beat grown, hulking mercenaries without much effort. Chakra-conductive metal is very rare and that's why not everyone has chakra weapons? That's fine if you keep to that rule consistently, but the Land of Snow has so much chakra-conductive metal that they can use it for full armored suits! As much as there are simple-seeming insights that nobody in our world invented for millennia, "Take something that is cheap at point A and transport it to point B where it is expensive" is not one of those surprisingly hard insights. It predates the invention of money by tens of thousands of years. We can trace flint hand axes that were traded across continents.

The ancient Greeks didn't conceptualize natural selection despite having all required information; and in many dark corners of the world, like America, the idea is still not fully accepted. Sometimes things are surprisingly not obvious and surprisingly slow to catch on. But "take the thing that is cheap at point A and move it to point B where it is in great demand." is not one of those non-obvious things. You can visualize how it works in your head, you can do it, it pays off, other people imitate that fellow who just got rich, and so the idiom goes way back in human history.

If you decide that the Land of Snow has enough chakra-conductive metal to use it for large construction projects, you can't have chakra metal be extremely rare and expensive in Fire Country just one month's travel away. Your world doesn't have to be as inexploitable as short-term equity markets, not even close, but it can't be that exploitable without a reason.

The plot of HPMOR involves Harry sometimes seeing insights that other wizards don't, and doing it on a timescale of months rather than decades.

There are two major background assumptions that try to make this more realistic.

(1) It is established very early in HPMOR (Ch. 5) that only a handful of Muggleborns attend Hogwarts each year, and all of those left Muggle society too young for science education. Cultural interaction with Muggle Britain, to say nothing of actual trade, is implicitly shown to be very limited (as it is in canon). This premise also allows Harry to come up with innovations that are Fair Play relative to the reader because the reader also knows Muggle things that wizards don't.

Although HPMOR doesn't go into this in much depth, the lack of trade between magical Britain and Muggle Britain implies some further background reason why the Weasleys can't just go off and make millions of pounds selling simple healing Charms to rich Muggles. Presumably, people like Lucius Malfoy have arranged for trade with Muggles to be heavily regulated - for the protection of the poor innocent Muggles, perhaps - so that only people like Lucius Malfoy are allowed to make their family fortunes at it, and nobody else is allowed to try. (This is also a likely place where Harry's idea about trading Galleons and Sickles for Muggle gold and silver would run into a barrier - there are a lot of dogs not barking, a lot of Ricardian comparative advantage trades that aren't happening, not only that one.)

(2) Rowling is on record as saying that total attendance at Hogwarts is around a thousand students (implying there are students in Harry's year who aren't mentioned in the canon books). This, in turn, implies perhaps 10,000-20,000 people in magical Britain - that is, their 'country' is actually more of a small town. And J. K. Rowling consistently wrote Lucius Malfoy as being the rich evil guy of a small town, and Cornelius Fudge as the stupid mayor of a small town.

In real life, magical Britain's tiny size might not reduce the rate of progress as much as we would naively expect. For reasons, I am not clear on, the number of geniuses and the speed of progress in civilization does not seem to scale anything like the total population size - maybe for the same reason that small startups can be as creative on average as entire large companies (whatever that reason is). Nonetheless, if magical Britain is among the most educated and organized of magical nations, and there are only 20,000 people in it, then it's quite reasonable for progress across the magical world to be slow.

Given these two premises, a couple of dozen tenured mystics at the Department of Mysteries can easily fail to see the possibilities inherent in a Time-Turner and end up using Time-Turners just to make Hogwarts schedules more manageable. H. G. Wells's first stories about time travel were about visiting the strange and distant land of the future, not about solving NP-hard problems. It took several generations of our large world's SF authors iterating on each other's stories, for science-fictional time travel to be associated with all the possibilities that I can think of in 2014. Magical Britain doesn't have a long tradition of science fiction, written by the best authors from our much larger world, to suggest those possibilities for time travel. And so Harry, who has read SF books, is allowed to see those possibilities even as I suppose that other wizards don't. Only Hermione made any attempt to exploit Time-Turners in canon, and she's Muggleborn.

This is civilizational inadequacy, the flip side of inexploitability. If your character is outrunning a civilization, there ought to be reasons for it. Not necessarily good justifications, but realistic cynical-economist causes: coordination failures, principal-agent problems, people chasing status, committees where nobody gets paid any more if the project succeeds. Or even more mundanely: nobody else has the magical resource, very few people have heard of the magical secret, your protagonist is from another world and is exploiting methods of thinking that were not invented for many millennia on our own Earth, etcetera.

You don't have to go overboard on reasons for civilizational inadequacy. In real life, a civilization does much worse than you would naively guess based on the number of people and how much they appear to care. Even the countries we read about in history books, for all their flaws, are the countries that functioned well enough to make it onto the stage of world history at all. World War II Britain was an unusually competent country; WW2-era France simply collapsed as the enemy tanks rolled in. In that light, Cornelius Fudge isn't unrealistic even as the leader of a large country.

But if you are an author of fiction advertised as intelligent, you may have to deal with the reader's naive expectations. They may ask "Why is the King needlessly provoking the Fell Empire?" even though history books abound with stupidities of much greater depth. They may ask, "Why doesn't anyone else use this resurrection spell?" when the fictional resurrection spell is expensive or arduous, and in real life, almost nobody is signed up for cryonics which costs me $125/year membership plus $180/year life insurance.

This is a primary reason for rationalist fanfiction.

Azkaban, as Rowling depicted it in the wizarding world, is entirely realistic. If there are no Dementors in American prisons, it's because American politicians have no Dementors to use, not because they're better people than the Wizengamot. Sexual assault is routine in American prisons and that could easily be prevented with video cameras. American prisons are worse than Azkaban in ways that Rowling couldn't easily have imitated without breaking her readers' suspension of disbelief. At least the wizarding world isn't imprisoning marijuana users that we ever saw.

Even so, if Azkaban were in a world of my own invention, someone might question the realism of Harry's reaction to Azkaban, versus other people in magical Britain seeming not to notice Azkaban as a moral horror. (Just like Americans don't notice the moral horror! Rowling was not being unrealistic!) How is it that Harry sees all these utilons that can be picked up by ending Azkaban, that nobody else has seen? (Answer: it is not possible for any arbitrary economic actor to make a hundred thousand Galleons of profit if they have the insight that Azkaban is needlessly cruel, so standard economics does not predict moral efficiency the way it predicts efficient stock markets.) Perhaps Eliezer Yudkowsky only invented Azkaban to be triumphed over by his allegedly superior hero, and put it into his world as a straw inefficiency, a weak man…

But I didn't invent Azkaban, it's right there in canon, and millions of readers read J. K. Rowling's stories and (correctly) accepted this as a routine background premise rather than claiming (incorrectly) that no (flawed) democracy (the size of a small town) would ever do such a thing and that she was just putting Azkaban there to show off her hero's moral superiority.

In fanfiction, you can write stories set in someone else's universe that you didn't invent to be exploitable, a universe which readers nonetheless aren't pre-blinded to the way they're blinded to the opportunities and horrors of real life. Furthermore, your readers will know that many readers of canon accepted the background inadequacy as something that wasn't out of character for human beings and their civilizations. "Unrealistic, you say? Did you leap out of your chair and yell 'Nobody in real life would do that!' while you were reading canon? You did? Well, literally millions of other readers didn't."

In HPMOR, I can point to Azkaban and say "Because it is there." Just like how, in our own universe, it is not my personal outlook on life to believe that governments would sell and advertise lottery tickets, even after the introduction of lotteries had been shown to cause an average 3% reduction in spending on food by low-income families. That is not me making a great display of how cynical I am about politicians; it is a fact that I could toss into an Earthfic as a background truth without needing to justify it. In HPMOR I get to say the same thing about Cornelius Fudge, albeit the source is Rowling and not reality. The important thing is that the civilizational inadequacy is given to me, and not depicted by me as my own statement.

Some people have accused me of making HPMOR more exploitable than canon because, e.g., Rowling said out-of-story that Dementors were inspired by depression and I made them be **(Spoilers!)** -. It's true that in such cases I cannot directly plead "because it is there"… but come on, Dementors are flying corpses that nothing can kill or destroy and that can only be fended off by happy thoughts in the form of animals. Stating out-of-story that they were inspired by depression serves as a powerful statement about how horrible depression is, but that would be overthinking the riddle if you actually found yourself inside that magical universe. Like, if you wander into a magical universe, and you spot some unkillable corpses that can only be fended off by happy thoughts shaped like animals, and you're like, "Hm… what do these represent… -? Nah, I'll go with Depression," you are trying too hard to give counterintuitive answers. From my perspective, Dementors-are- was just a Fair Play Insight on the observations that the canon universe gives us.

But then we have to continue the logic: this Fair Play Insight has no barrier to keep out the likes of Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw. You don't need Muggle science to solve this riddle. So now we have to ask: why is Harry the first to think of this? Wouldn't someone else think of it too, if the riddle is really so obvious? Thus no sooner does Harry figure out that Dementors are - than the story explains why anyone who realizes this keeps it a secret, and Harry realizes that Godric Gryffindor did figure it out, along with who knows how many others.

And then the - - is based on a rare state of mind that to my knowledge was first written about by Francis Bacon in The New Atlantis in the seventeenth century: the notion that - itself can be eradicated from the universe, by your (and your civilization's) own efforts and not by imploring a pre-existing deity to do it for you. This is a tradition that only Harry has inherited; and it is plausible enough that Godric and Rowena, who weren't raised on the same science-fiction books, never attained the same state of mind.

All of this has to be considered in the background, if not explicitly in the story, every time some insight or invention is said to be novel relative to the surrounding civilization.

I did get a fair amount of backlash about making Dementors be instantiations of -. And I was indeed accused of making them be that way only so that Harry could show off. Which shows what happens without the rejoinder of "Because it was in canon!" when the author starts putting in what somebody thinks is mere author-decided exploitability.

And so there are stories you can tell in fanfiction that you can't easily tell in any other mode of literature because in fanfiction the reader knows that you didn't create the problems the hero faces.

 **End:**

* * *

 **So chances are you don't need to be told how inexploitability and civilization inadequacy is relevant to my story, in fact, once you finish reading this...** (But if your character is doing something that a whole civilization didn't think of, we have to ask why that whole civilization didn't think of it.) **You probably laughed out loud while thinking of all the reasons why anyone would have to ask why the Imperium of Man wouldn't have thought of something an individual or even a single planet would have.**

 **Like... I don't know, how about the Adeptus Mechanicus which has a monopoly on technology and industry and considers innovation to be complete and utter heresy, the fact that even if they were open-minded to new ideas there would still be problems with communication and transportation across a Galaxy where entire planets are frequently forgotten about in the vast imperial bureaucracy on top of the fact that planets, systems, and even entire sectors occasionally get cut off from the rest of the Galaxy via Warp Storms which would, in turn, make the spread of new ideas** _ **very**_ **slow and uneven, and then you remember all the other reasons for civilization inadequacy that you could bet your bottom dollar would be all over the place in the 41st Millenium...**

 **Honestly, the Imperium of Man might as well be the poster boy, (poster empire?) for civilization inadequacy. As the Templin Institute said it: in a galaxy of carnage, it is by the will and strength of humanity's armies, rather than its bureaucrats, that has allowed the Imperium to endure for so long while other powers have withered and failed.**

 **So everything's fine and dandy, right? All we the people of Ancient Terra- I mean Earth needs to do is take advantage of our civilizations which ,while nowhere near inexploitable, is free from a number of inadequacies of the Imperium, like a lack of technological growth brought on by the Adeptus Mechanicus Monopoly and the general fear technology across the Imperium, and become, if nothing else, a force that can hold its own planet? As some of you have stated:** a space marine bolter is a giant grenade launcher and piercing armor gun, which we do in fact have several models (primitive but based on the same concept and worth similar firepower) **So just make rocket-propelled armor-piercing grenade launchers and you have yourself weapons equal to the Space Marines Bolters, Yes?**

…

…

…

 **'No' I thought to myself. If it was THAT easy for an individual world to create weapons equaling the Space Marines, other planets would have done it already.**

 **It goes without saying that any world that gets caught by the Adeptus Mechanicus innovating new technologies and/or altering existing technologies would probably be stopped with extreme prejudice, and the Adeptus Mechanicus might have the ability to tell if** **any** **world in imperial space is cheating in that regard, but then we need to ask ourselves… what about the planets that end up forgotten about in the Imperium's vast bureaucracy or lost and isolated from the warp storms? Both of these can very well last for hundreds or even thousands of years, and it only took a measly few centuries for our own world to go from feudal world to civilized/developing world.**

 **Since I haven't yet seen an official name for the human civilizations outside of the Imperium, I have decided to use the term Dark Humans, due to them developing outside the Emperor's/Omnissiah's light.**

 **So, even if almost all of these worlds that become isolated fall prey to alien invasions, chaotic incursions (mainly those of the indecisive mollusk), or natural disasters before they gain the ability to stand on their own, there should still be hundreds or even thousands of Dark Human worlds, systems, or even sectors which after being permitted to develop in isolation, and became able to protect themselves against at the very least, the most common threats to a world in the 41st millennium, with most having advanced technology compared to the Imperium of Man in at least some aspects, similar to the Tau who themselves were isolated from the rest of the galaxy for thousands of years.**

 **So… if it's relatively easy to create a decent military to combat the dangers of the 41st millennium, then where are all these Dark Human civilizations?**

 **My original conclusion was that they did not exist, due to the fact that it is** _ **not**_ **easy to create a decent military to combat the dangers of the 41st millennium.**

 **Take the bolter for example, said to be an armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenade launchers, in my original story it was so much more advanced and powerful than similar weapons we can build today to the point where you could take the bolter shell, take away both its rocket and grenade components leaving only a hollow shell,** **DROP** **it on something, and whatever the hollow shell was dropped on would receive the equivalent of a shot from a 50 caliber sniper rifle, and if you put back in the rocket-propelled grenade aspect… I'll just leave what the damage will be to your imagination(s).**

 **Add all that to how powerful everything else must be in order to survive that then you can see why in my mind's eye, Warhammer 40K was an inexploitable universe in terms of what a singular human world can create to protect itself. All the low-hanging and the not-so-low-hanging fruit in the self-sufficient Planetary Defense Force department has long since been picked. So if we modern humans were going to get by in the 41st millennium we would need to find other methods of exploitation.**

 **(And yes, I definitely have seen ways in which the 41st millennium could be exploited and how modern humans could find and exploit those opportunities where other factions never did. Well… three big ones in particular, but those would be spoilers.)**

 **But you people have been insisting that bolter guns/shells are not that powerful, while that would make it easier for me to write a believable scenario where we'd survive it left me with a new problem, what other explanation is there for the lack of Dark Human civilizations? If it was that easy for an alone and isolated world to survive and make better weapons then the Imperium what's the reason nobody had heard of them?**

 **However I didn't see how so many civilizations could exist and not be known throughout the Galaxy, well I guess part of the reason would be that very few, if any of them, would leave the sanctuary of their territories due to how dangerous it is simply to use FTL in this universe, let alone all the nasty things you could come across at the end of your journey which you would likely end up leading back home. But that wouldn't explain why the Imperium would never find them what with their willingness to explore and (re)conquer any human world they find, now they probably wouldn't find every Dark Human world out there, but they would certainly find some of them, so why would their existence be kept.. a... secret?**

 **It was then that it hit me, what if they** **ARE** **found by the Imperium, but factions like the inquisition keep their existence a secret for multiple reasons?**

 **Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let's imagine that Dark Human civilizations are categorized into three types by the Imperium.**

 **Type 1: Docile.**

 **Dark Human civilizations of this type** **often require no more than an emissary and/or a small fleet to be sent to be** **brought back into the fold due to a combination of remaining faithful to the teachings of the** **Imperium, and their need or want for protection and trade granted by imperial rule.**

 **Standard procedure is to perform a quick investigation of the world to ensure that it is free of Chaos or Zeno influence, and if the influence of neither is found, immediately [re]integrate the territory into the Imperium.**

 **Type 2: Defiant.**

 **These Dark Humans are civilizations that have strayed from or if never been on the path set by the God-Emperor/** **Omnissiah, and have expressed no interest in either joining or rejoining his holy Imperium, and they are capable of enforcing their will on the matter with a sizable Planetary Defense Forces and Space Navies.**

 **Standard procedure is to either send a sizable force to conquer this territory mediately or lure the Imperium's enemies to their doorstep to both weaken resistance against the Imperium and to make the locals more willing to accept the Imperium's rule and the protection that comes with it.**

 **Type 3: Supreme.**

 **Supreme Dark Humans are the designation given to humans who have either created or found a means of surpassing the** **Imperium of Man to such a degree that if warfare were to break out between them and the Imperium, the resulting war would most likely result in a pyrrhic victory for the Imperium.**

 **One example of such a** **civilization** **can be a planet that before its isolation had come across some number of Space Marine Geneseed as well as the knowledge on how to make Space Marine gear, and in the time it has forsaken the teachings of the second founding and has the Astartes at their legion strength and numbers.**

 **Even though these** **civilizations can't be brought to heel without a staggering loss of imperial assets nor can they be peacefully integrated with the strengths of their civilization spread throughout the Imperium without the numerous imperial organizations impeding the progress of the spread, there are three ways they can be utilized.**

 **(1) They can serve as dark bastions against the myriad of enemies of humanity, just as with the type 2** **civilizations. With the only difference being that few invasions could be expected to weaken it enough to be [re]conquered by the Imperium.**

 **(2) With the power to withstand an Imperial Crusade for more than a year with only the resources of a few or even a single star-system, the Dark Human civilization in question can be expected to have adaptations to allow it to endure the harsh reality of galaxy. (Look above for an example, and the reason why these adaptations can't be implemented across the Imperium.) In the event of a particular disastrous cataclysm that would make the numerous imperial organizations desperate enough to accept help from humans outside of the** **Emperor's light messages are to be sent to these Dark Human** **civilizations in order to request their help, while making it clear that if the Imperium was to fall, the aggressors would come for them next.**

 **(3) In the event that the worst should come to past and the Emperor's light fades from the galaxy, each of these civilizations would be given every incentive possible to expand into the Galaxy and establish their own imperium in order to best ensure humanity's survival and their own.**

 **What do you guys think? Did I come across an original and interesting theory? Or did I just overthink this whole thing and/or did I not look hard enough across the internet before I came up with this?**

 **Edit: I have since decided that yes I did, in fact, overthink this. Because I have come up with an explanation for why no human world would ever achieve greater technological capability than the modern-day Imperium, no matter what circumstances they found themselves in, and why modern-day humanity or the Tau wouldn't be stuck like that.**

 **An explanation I will… explain, in the next chapter.**

 **Now for the rest of the comment of armentho:**

second thing:

our meta-knowledge is invaluable

we know were most artifacts as well lost tech can be found

this in itself gives us something to look forward at long term

 **We do? Please elaborate.**

third:

faith on the emperor, he is a tangible deity by this point so a mix of religious beliefs and philosophical doctrine in which mankind must pursue progress (worth emps as the maximum standard of human capacity known) can give us the protection of faith while keeping our scientific values

 **Thanks for the tip.**

 **Alright, everyone, thanks for reading and the next chapter will continue the story properly and I hope to see you all there when it comes out.**

 **P.S. I know I wrote this down in the last chapter as an edit but I want to repeat here since we're already talking about coming up with things nobody else thought of. Before you write any suggestions on what to name the ships of modern-day humanity's space navy in the event we/they make it, please check the reviews to see whether or not someone else has already sent the suggestion you are about to.**


	7. Foreboding Future and Lamented Past

**I'm sorry this took much longer to write than it should have, but here it is.**

 **Chapter 7: Foreboding Future and Lamented Past.**

 **Keep a little fire burning, however small, however hidden.**

 **Cormac McCarthy.**

* * *

Two days ago after his discussion with Johnson, Elric entered his basement with an unreadable expression on his face.

The basement was barely illuminated by the candle in his hand showing the walls to be covered with a collection of items while the middle of the room was empty save for two pieces of sheet-covered furniture, both were _very_ dusty by being untouched for so long. Elric moved between the two covered pieces and first removed the wide and thin one's sheet to reveal a mirror, it was ordinary-seeming if a little more thoroughly decorated then a mirror in the home of a medieval village would usually look. Removing the second sheet revealed a simple yet functional desk he would hardly ever use and he was sure he wouldn't use it now, after checking to see if everything was working he moved on to the next step in the process of summoning the council to an unscheduled meeting.

While he had done this several times before Elric could never truly be at ease with the next part of the process, he looked around the basement room and saw shadows cast by the collection of sentimental items that he never got around to cleaning up, a skull of an Ork with the same arrow in its eye socket that had killed it stood on a shelf, the claw of a stalking beast that to this day had not yet been identified and for reasons he couldn't explain the shadow made by the ship wheel of a mad pirate was causing him extra distress.

But he reeled in his fear, lifted his hand to be level with his eyes, looked directly at the ring on his hand, focused on the mirror behind it and in front of him, and blew out the candle. Letting the darkness claim the room.

10 seconds later light return as the ring began to glow a soft white and blue light which left the room with fewer shadows then the candle had. A moment later a glowing blue text appeared in the mirror which read: **Awaiting input.**

Elric interfaced with the mirror in order to send a message to the others telling them to get into contact with him as soon as possible, after a minute of waiting for a response the mirror now showed a line of text telling him that the soonest everyone could assemble for an emergency meeting was in two days, and so he left to wait.

Two days passed before he returned and a collection of 7 pictures of gray silhouettes of a human head and torso appeared in a line next to each other in the mirror, and not a moment later the one on the far left had an orange glow around it, marking the person it represented the one speaking.

 _ **"The Keeper of Stories has summoned this meeting, and we await his tale."**_

After musing over the number of times he heard that exact line of dialog, he enlightened the others to all facts of the situation he deemed necessary to tell, the soldiers, their encounter with the Gretchins, the story they brought with them (especially their story about the Apollo mission.) the basic overview of the Covenant's origins that he gave them, and the agreement for both parties to return to their respective places and report to their respective leaders once their wounded soldier could be safely moved.

" _ **Point of clarification, you believe this Johnson was talking about the same Apollo mission from our history?"**_

"Yes, I asked him to tell me about some further details on the mission once I got the chance. Everything matched the historical records we have, including the names of the three men who undertook it.

" _ **Apologies if I sound brash, but how is that possible?"**_ One of the new members asked.

"There were reports of devices available to mankind during the dark times which could permit interdimensional transportation. It was unknown if these were found or invented by us but they did exist and we were on the cusp of utilizing them before the fall. It would seem that the unidentified object in the peninsula had such a feature as one of its functions besides making every creature in the peninsula approaching sapience to go insane." Elric explained.

" _ **So there is a portal which leads to both another reality that holds the form of our far past inside the peninsula… The insanity-inducing effects, is there any sign of them continuing with the portal opened?"**_

"As far as I could tell, Johnson and his men seemed fine."

After a moment of silence, someone spooks the thoughts on the subject.

" _ **You know what this means if they are from the time before the Age of Darkness?"**_

" _ **Yes…"**_ another said." _ **"They're not**_ _ **bound**_ _ **from the Deterioration… they can return humanity to the zenith of the Age of Darkness and beyond!"**_

"Eventually." Elric chided.

" _ **...Eventually."**_ One of them conceded. Silents reigned for a time before someone decided to ask the next question.

 _ **"How much do you think we can trust these... Ancient Terrans?"**_

"Johnson and his men struck me as honest, but if a few soldiers could reveal the nature of the leaders of a world then we would be sending parchment letters to each other, not conversing like this now would we? So let us discuss how to judge the leaders of this other world."

The conversation continued rather predictably, they remarked how remarkable of a story that was and if Elric was almost anyone else they wouldn't believe him. Then they discussed the issue as thoroughly as they could in the hour they allowed themselves, and then begin proposing solutions. Ideally, they would take as much time as necessary to discuss every conceivable angle of the problem, but the adequate solution thought and implemented in time was infinitely better than the perfect solution that came too late, and in times like these any solution was at risk of coming too late.

" _ **Might I propose a solution which I believe will, if not end our 15,000-year predicament, will at least make sure we don't fall any further from our great aspiration?"**_ Said the silhouette on the far right.

"I'm listening," Elric said already having a good idea what the proposal was going to be, while the others gave permission.

" _ **The greatest concern we have with allying ourselves with the outsiders is they may very well end up being as bad as the imperials, and or unable to defeat them and the Orks even with our help. Let's start with finding out if they are trustworthy, we do this by orchestrating a series of events that will result in them acquiring several pieces of imperial technology- a few lasguns for example."**_

 _ **"Soon after which we send a representative to tell them we are willing to work with them, as long as they are willing to share any technology they either create or find. If they refuse to share anything then they won't have our support at all, and if they share only the technology they are known to have then we publicly support them, while privately we regard them just as we regard the imperials. But if they are completely honest with us and they prove to be able to at least hold their own against the inevitable Ork Horde and Imperial Remnant, then I propose we place our faith in the Ancient Terrans."**_

There was a pause in the speech before the next question _**"Now that I think about it I don't believe you told us their collective name for themselves."**_

Elric stopped and thought about it for a moment, "Johnson said he was part of an organization known as the United States Marine Corps, seeing as how State is another word for country or Nation it would make sense for that to be their collective name. But I feel as though that's not the case, for when Johnson spoke of it I had the sense that he was speaking of a country amongst many others… I'll ask for their collective name when I have the chance."

 _ **"Very well, we'll simply call them the Ancient Terrans until we have more information, but for now do we have an agreement to follow through with the plan laid out before us?"**_

One by one the Council of Elders agreed to the plan Elric wanted his turn until one of them talked about supporting the plan to return to the Age of Darkness.

And Elric returned to the Age of Darkness… at the absolute worst time to return.

* * *

"Really?" Someone complained as the cylinder landscape above began to burst inwards from the mechanivore's assault, threatening to crush the mass of pristine cities and bodies underneath.

An eight-year-old Elric was following his mother along to the leisure shuttle with her being among several other tourists when the Mechanivore began its disruptions. She picked up the pace along with the rest of the crowd which moved with a sense of calm annoyance at the calamity that surrounded them.

Then the landscape above gave out and an uncountable amount of debris were sent flying across the cylindrical continent until a wave of energy appeared from seemingly nowhere and swept across the hollow sky, causing the colossal blocks of rubble to vanish in an instant. However the hole still lingered, and though it the Mechanivores giant forward appendages began to probe the opening, further tearing through its quarry while also being met with resistance from the matter-vanishings waves that fought to disintegrate the invaders' limbs. Resulting in a scene that invoked images of an enraged shadowy god trying to force its way into heaven.

Meanwhile Elric his mother and the small crowd they were a part of had reached the shuttle they were heading towards while passing neighbors who were dancing, reading, painting, or playing their instruments without a care in the world, content to wait for the destruction of the cylinder just as those heading for the shuttle were content to leave behind their long-time friends and neighbors to the inevitable destruction that would be brought on by the Mechanivore.

" **Warning: hostile Chrono Wave detected. Stay within the designated safe zones."** The habitat's computer announced.

Some of the inhabitants listened to the instructions… the others… simply kept doing as they were doing as the spacetime around them was slowed and quickened and was eventually devoured causing their bodies to be torn apart while the habitat itself was beginning to be subsumed by the immaterial realm.

Elric was randomly looking around when he saw his father in the distance being disintegrated before his eyes, the skin vanished leaving the blood to pour out of his father's body, leaving only his muscles and bones viable.

He glances at his soundings one last time, looked at his skinless hand, and then collapse.

Elric wondered how he would talk about the experience the next time they saw each other.

Boarding the shuttle Elric could hear some of the other passengers talk about how the Mechanivore's complaining spree was going to be answered. "I hear they're sending 5,000 ships from Arcturus to deal with Kazara."

"5,000 ships?" someone else said in disbelief. "That barely counts a flotilla."

"It gets better, these are the small and primitive ships that we use in first contact scenarios to accurately get a sense of how the aliens in question treat those that are beneath them. The sizes of these things range from 750 meters to 3 kilometers long for the escorts and the battleships are at most 8 kilometers long."

"Damn, I know a cylinder habitat of 250 billion in shadow space is an extremely obscure thing but surely they could send-"

A Burst of activity and the whole shuttle fell silent, then a shriek that every human both alive and dead heard, felt, and would ultimately be ruined by, blasted its way through every last corner of the Infinite Federation, and inside the shuttle, everyone screamed in pain and fell unconscious.

When Elric returned to consciousness everyone was either screaming or crying and the shuttle's computer was repeating the same announcement over and over again.

" **Warning: Resurrection Network disabled. Exercise caution in all activities until it is restored."**

Elric wondered what the shuttle was talking about and why everyone was making those weird noises, so he looked for his mother. He found her hugging her legs tightly as she rocked back and forth.

"Mom?" Elric called out as he approached her. "Mom, what's wrong?"

His mother looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "Something horrible has happened…" she began to say before she couldn't help but return

"Maybe dad could-" he started.

"He… he isn't coming back this time." His mother said through uncontrolled tears, "No one who leaves from now on is ever coming back."

Fear and confusion enveloped Elric's mind at that statement. "But everyone always comes back! Always!"

Thought hiccups of sorrow she explained that the system that allowed everyone to come back had been destroyed, and from now on anyone whose body is destroyed leaves forever… just as before.

As Elric begin to fully understand the horror of what was happening the shuttle left the cylinder that had always been his home as it was destroyed, along with its 249 billion residents that didn't leave because they thought they could always come back.

And through the debris of the cylinder world it had once built, the monster that had done this was revealed.

Emerging from the ruins of the cylinder world its kind had once built, the mechanivore's physical form could have been compared to a cross between a cuttlefish, a squid, and a starfish. It had a hefty yet smooth semi-cylindrical middle body, with a narrowing panel on top of the rear that had eight protruding synthetic tentacles along its length, with each being the same length of the panel. Extending from its front end were the five starfish-like limbs that could serve as arms or legs depending on the mechanivore's needs with the rear-most of the larger legs having crescent-shaped extensions. Its immensity was hard to comprehend being comparable to the continents of Earth while being exceptionally fast and agile for a machine-ship of that size due to its Mass-Altering-Drive.

Looking at the only shuttles that had escaped… no, left for a vacation to Earth the mechanivore Kazaras improvised weapons begin charging to destroy the last remnant of the outermost McKendree cylinder forever.

Just before firing, Kazara screamed in a way all sentients nearby could understand the meaning behind it.

 _Defiance!_

* * *

" _ **Stories! Stories!"**_

Elric was brought back to the present finding himself on the floor shivering with cold sweat from the time when he first learned what death was with the others waiting for him.

"I'm sorry-" he started to reply as he got up.

" _ **If that was a rampant vision then save your apology. The Cybernetic Revolt left everyone on this council with wounds that none of us have been able to heal from, and for as long as the implants cannot be replaced or repaired without us dying in a few decades none of us will be able to either. Blast it baring the**_ _ **Ancient Terrans**_ _ **appearing in the peninsula all of Humanity still bears the mental scars from the war, otherwise we would have recovered our technological prowess long ago."**_

Elric took a few deep breaths before he pushed himself back up to the desk and he, in turn, agreed to the plan and the meeting was complete, with the presented plan being the agreed-upon action.

" _ **Then it is decided,**_ said one of the silhouettes, " _ **we will use our influence to arrange the test for the**_ _ **Ancient Terrans with all due haste. We'll call for the next meeting when we have formulated our plan. To the stars above were our future awaits."**_

"To the stars above," Elric said with a hint of weariness in his voice along with the rest of the council.

Minutes later Elric left the basement and began to ascend the stairs only to stop midway through when the many millennia he lived- so little of it being joyful- begin to bear down on him.

He was eventually saved from his despair when there was a knock on the door at the top of the stairs, "Father, are you alright?" Alean called out from the other side of it.

He looked up with a ghost of a smile on his face as he continued up the stairs and replied: "Yes I am alright." He opened the door and he saw her with a wide smile on her face and a moment later she held out her arms in an inviting matter while making small and quick jumps.

Elric responded by immediately swooping down and picking her up with a more genuine smile on his face, and carrying her upstairs to her bedroom.

Once they arrived Elric tucked her in and rose up to leave, but before he did so Alean asked him what was troubling him and if there was anything she could do to help.

He turned around with the same ghost of a smile from earlier and replied.

"I do not wish to make my worries become your problems, but thank you for your concern, good night." He turned around and was halfway to the door when Alena responded.

"It's okay if they do."

Elric paused for a moment, then he turned around and walked back to Alean's bedside and sat down.

He was silent for a moment before he took a long and deep inhale and exhale "Very well… I... I have been thinking of the failure to return us to both the stars and the age of darkness which has lasted for 15,000 thousand years." he said with a level of melancholy in his voice.

Alean thought about her father's words for around half a minute before she spoke again. "I wish I could say that I understand why that's sad, but I've heard the story over and over again and… well…"

"I think I understand," Elric said with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Our customs forbade me from telling you any of the details before you come of age, but I know of a way to tell you about the basic story in a different way if you would like." he offered. "You would be left with a riddle that you won't be able to solve until later, but if that doesn't matter to you-"

"I am already stuck with a riddle that I can't solve because of what I already know."

It didn't take long for Alean to respond. "I'm listening."

Elric nodded and continued, "It's a song called a Song of Darkness," he expanded. "There are rumors that it bears an uncanny resemblance to an ancient fictional song from a series of books which turned out to be rather prophetic, but do understand that hasn't diminished its importance to the Covenant."

She nodded. "I understand."

Elric closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths and he began to hum in a long tone which vibrated with power and sorrow and longing, and when he started to sing each word carried with it its own story.

* * *

 _Terra was young, her surface green,_

 _And no craft on Luna was seen,_

 _No knowledge made_ _device_ _was shown,_

 _When mankind woke and walked alone._

 _(*)_

 _We made the unmade creations,_

 _We forged the yet unforged nations,_

 _We stopped and looked at fair Luna,_

 _And wished to soar above Terra,_

 _And so we made Apollo fly,_

 _And so the first men waved goodbye._

 _(*)_

 _The time of progress shined through strong,_

 _In those dark days, we knew no wrong,_

 _From tedious work, we were freed,_

 _With Helios, none were in need,_

 _The curse of death had passed away,_

 _The world was just in those days._

 _(*)_

 _A place we made of star bound home,_

 _With many-layered shells of dome,_

 _With harden roof and powered floor,_

 _Made safe and fruitful evermore,_

 _The light of Sol and brother stars,_

 _Centauri to Arcturus far,_

 _Untouched like man from ever-night,_

 _They shone forever fair and bright._

 _(*)_

 _There factory did manless smote,_

 _There data danced, and writer wrote,_

 _There forged were ships, made not to wilt,_

 _The tunnel mined, the home self-built,_

 _There structures held forms to be awed,_

 _There works of art were well applauded,_

 _Guarded ably against the hoard,_

 _There peace and rapture felt no sword._

 _(*)_

 _There we were an unwearied folk,_

 _Until from shadow, the plagues woke,_

 _Then battles fought and mournings sang,_

 _And then the Dark Age death cries rang._

 _(*)_

 _Our realm is frail, our minds are bound,_

 _Our legacy has nearly drowned,_

 _Lost is the warmth, lost is the tome,_

 _The void now dwells where we called home._

 _(*)_

 _The hoard now falls across our realm,_

 _The Imperium holds the helm,_

 _With ruler trapped as living bone,_

 _Still and silent upon his throne,_

 _The darkness now means evil be,_

 _Until once more we become free._

* * *

The song ended and Alean felt a sense of wonder and sadness, she almost asked her father what the majority of the song meant when she remembered that he couldn't tell her anymore until she was older, so she placed her hand on her necklace, thanked him for the story, and bid him good night.

Elric left Alean's room and it only took a few moments for the weariness to return, even and because of the time he spent with his daughter.

It had been getting harder for Elric not to think of her impending doom lately. If there was one thing he would have given everything else for, it would be the chance to give her- and by extension the rest of the covenant- the biological immortality that he and the elders had retained throughout the long eons.

 _Blast it,_ he thought to himself. _I had avoided having children for so long to avoid having this conundrum... Her mother said there would be no chance for her to have a child with a single encounter, especially not with the protection which she had... and then I find Alean on my doorstep with a blanket, a necklace, and a note saying 'Sorry, I truly thought this would not come to past.' And the strangest part was she was never found again, no hint of were she went, no reason why or how she just... disappeared._

He continued to entrap himself for a spell until he remembered that he didn't have the means to solve either this mystery or how he was going to deal with Alean's limited life span.

But then he reminded himself there was a sliver of hope for the latter if the Ancient Terrans were at the level of development he suspected they were- and nothing happened which would greatly disrupt their progress- then all he would need to do was ensure Alean would reach her 50th birthday and then she would have the chance to outlive him.

He decided that would have to do and he turned himself in for the night.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

 **If anyone recognized the song then I would like to remind you all about something:**

 _ **"Warhammer Fantasy is Lord Of The Rings on a cocktail of steroids and GBH. And Warhammer 40000 is the above on a cocktail of every drug known to man and genuine lunar dust, stuck in a blender with Alien, Mechwarrior, Starship Troopers and Star Wars, bathed in blood, turned up to eleventy-billion, set on fire, and catapulted off into space screaming WAAAGH! and waving a chainsaw sword."**_

— _ **TV Tropes, This Is Your Premise on Drugs**_

 **So yeah, underneath all- that, plus the addition of Halo, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect, The Matrix, Starcraft, Grey Goo, Universe at War, and a bit more Star Wars to the blender for this fic, 40k has Lord Of The Rings at its heart.**

 **Seriously, the next time you have the time to watch a video online check out this one from Wisecrack:** **The Philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Why Things Keep Getting Worse – Wisecrack Edition.** **I bet you'll find something familiar about both universes. The connection will be somewhat important for this fic.**

 **And remember; PM me on your theories to get bragging rites if they come true.**


	8. To Sow and Reap

**Writing experiment in progress, please leave comments.**

 **Chapter 8: To Sow and Reap.**

 **Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.**

 **Soren Kierkegaard.**

* * *

In the time of old Earth, the phenomenon of death was personified by many cultures, one of these incarnations was envisioned by those who saw death as inevitable as the passing of the seasons, as something that would mow the living like a Farmer mows his crops with the passing of those very same seasons.

These two concepts would coalesce to become an image of death which would often appear as a scythe-wielding skeleton with the foreboding duty to harvest the living; the Grim Reaper.

This concept had made many appearances in both old and new works of art, but it's the engines of war that had been given the same name as death incarnate that will be spoken of here.

Some examples include the Hierarchy Reaper Drone from Universe at War: Earth Assault. The tripod-like resource collector of the Hierarchy that would stalk across the battlefield pulling raw material, cattle, and civilians indiscriminately into its onboard teleporter sending them to the ships in orbit to be processed into usable resources.

In Starcraft 2 the Reaper took the form of a human soldier using a jump pack to move very swiftly and to jump up and down cliffs in order to reach and harvest the workers on the mineral line and to leave before their defenses could protect them.

The Mass Effect universe also had Reapers in the form of colossal synthetic-organic starships, these unfathomably ancient monstrosities lurk in Dark Space outside of the galaxy returning ever 50,000 years to harvest every spacefaring civilization to add to their numbers, utilizing everything from disabling the FTL travel and communication system they long ago installed to cripple any empire that came to depend on it, to Indoctrinating any species that spent too much time near them into betraying their allies to weaken resistance against them in order to ensure the harvest would be as easy as possible in spite of their overwhelming power.

And in the 42nd millennium, the Reaper came in the form of the C'tan known as the Nightbringer that long ago forced the fear of death into all living creatures- save for the Orks- and while it's capable of taking any shape it usually styles itself as a giant floating reaper, complete with a thirty-foot-long-scythe.

In addition to this, the Eldar have two kinds of warriors called the Dark Reapers and the Harlequin Death Jesters, both of which are masters of highly-destructive and heavy weaponry. With the former specializing in slaying their foes from afar and with overwhelming power long before they can do anything to undo their destiny. And for the latter simply killing their quarry is never enough, to make the death and bloodshed rewarding, they must combine both with ironic humor. According to the wiki on the Death Jesters, these include but are not limited to; "Slaying an officer at the crescendo of a rallying speech, panicking enemy sappers so they flee into their own minefield, or wounding a heavy weapon trooper so that their shot flies wide and destroys the very objective they were defending."

And now with the arrival of the Ancient Terrans, another engine of war with the title of Reaper was introduced, for in the skies of Genesis deployed from a rapidly expanding military base and flying at a speed of 230 mph towards the surviving Gretchen's last-known destination, the MQ-9 Reaper was in flight.

Larger and more powerful than the MQ-1 Predator this pale shaded Hunter-Killer scanned the earth below beholding fields of lush and verdant fields after it had left the forest in the same direction the surviving Gretchin was last spotted heading towards, the grassland was certainly a sight to behold and more than worthy of a desktop background for those who coveted such things, but no time could be spared admiring the view.

Soaring at heights that made it impossible to see to unaided human eyes the Reaper headed northwest from the slight where the confirmation between Bravo Team and the 4 Gretchins occurred, following the trail of the only Gretchin that got away.

First, the forest began to grow more sparse until it gave way to a stretching plane that had… unnatural mounds of foliage covered earth scattered across it. Hyperspectral scanning revealed that the mounds were the result of long destroyed and abandoned vehicles and weapons buried beneath the surface of the planes.

 _It must be from one or more of the battles fought between the Covenant and the Orks during all those long millennia, oh well, there will be time for those things later. Need to keep moving forward, need to make it right._

Past the stretching plane with buried ruins, a sparse forest appeared with rolling green hills behind it and snow-tooth mountains behind the hills. Soon a heat signature revealed itself that was identical to the Gretchins from the first encounter, right at the base of the hills followed by both similar size signatures and larger ones gathering, on closer inspection the Reaper discovered it to be an Ork encampment.

It was roughly the size of the village Bravo Team was currently residing in but it was far more ramshackle.

Constructed within and without clearing the forest it was made with a collection of rocks, trees, and scraps of metal that crudely made up the _buildings_ in a dreadfully unsystematic fashion. Just to add to the ugly mess was the fact that the location was crawling with Orks and their related strains, ranging in the hundreds of Gretchins and a full Ork for every 5 Gretchin, rounded up.

They possessed only axes, swords, and other melee weapons but no guns or vehicles were present, _feral Orks then_ , just as the locals had said. They were doing things like grunting and headbutting each other in a way that looked like some sort of ritual on their part.

But the most important thing to note was that there were no anti-air capabilities around the encampment. Meanwhile, the autopsy revealed that the Gretchins hearing and seeing- and by extension Orks- was better than that of humans, it wasn't that much better and the Reaper was too high up, it couldn't be spotted and it couldn't be shot down.

The Reapers armaments were ready to fire. If orders came to strike then it would strike, like it always did and had to do. But here it would be made right.

Because there would never be a chance to kill non-combatants when striking against the Orks, and the Orks would always be an _imminent threat_... much more than an innocent man only collecting scrap metal with the same height as bin Laden. Or a 67-year-old midwife gathering okra with her two grandchildren.

 _I no longer love blue skies, in fact, I now prefer grey skies, the drones do not fly when the skies are grey, and for a short period of time, the mental tension and fear eases._

That speech from her grandson would always be haunting to remember, and it could never be forgotten… But here that would stop, here it would be able to do what it was made to do; it would find and collect the monsters and those who chose to be monsters so the children of the world would be free to emerge into the light and sing to each other of peace, joy, and prosperity.

And it would stop being one of those monsters, it would stop causing fear and pain and it would stop creating more vengeful monsters.

So the armaments were ready to fire at a moment's notice, no warning, no chance for the target to fight back.

For there was never meant to be a glorious battle for the Reaper.

Only the harvest.

Then the order came to hold fire and search for more Ork encampments in and around the forest and hills. Just a scouting mission for now? Fine, there would be patience and consideration here, as there should have been patience and consideration before.

The Reaper flew to sow the seeds of successful future campaigns and of a future without monsters.

* * *

 **Authors note:**

 **Firstly; what do you all think of this particular chapter?**

 **Secondly; I want to publicly thank and congratulate Raptor265 from SpaceBattles Forums who wrote about chapter 7.**

"A Warhammer 40k version of the Song of Durin? Nice! I may or may not have been singing the song in my head the entire time I was reading it. Clamavi de Profundis!"

 **I said it on SpaceBattles and I'll say it for everyone on, Sufficient Velocity, and anywhere else I get around to posting this fic on. Thank you for noticing that and you are right, in fact, I must have listened to that very video a couple of hundred times while writing Song of Darkness, and I'll tell you all, it was a true challenge for me too...**

 **Make the song with lines being 8 syllables long.**

 **Make the last words of each line rhyme.**

 **Make sure the lyrics made sense.**

 **Make the song talk about an awe-inspiring time just like the original Song of Durin.**

 **But I was and still am extremely proud of it and I'm glad at least some people are enjoying it.**

 **For those of you wondering how and why Lord of the Rings exist in my version of the 40k universe- or did anyway- well that was one of the Emperor's shenanigans before he was the Emperor, both to prepare mankind for was out there and as a joke... and boy did that result in some Hilarity Ensues moments when humanity first met the Eldar and the Orks.**

 **Lastly;** **as funny as it would be if we only needed to spam aerial drones in order to win against anything 40k has to offer I would like to make this as realistic as possible so I'd like anyone who can answer to answer this question.**

 **What does each faction have or can plausibly acquire or invent to deal with our aerial drones? Like for example the local Orks for the immediate future… what could they do to deal with Predators and Reapers?**

 **Sincerely Betapike.**

 **P.S. Look up Last Week Tonight Drones if your interested where the idea for this chapter came from.**


End file.
